"I'm glad mother and the girls won't see you," she said, hurriedly. "Go up to your room. I'll bring bandages."
He complied without any comment. Lenore searched for what she needed to treat a wound and ran up-stairs. Dorn was sitting on a chair in his room, holding his arm, from which blood dripped to the floor. He smiled at her.
"You would be a pretty Red Cross nurse," he said.
Lenore placed a bowl of water on the floor and, kneeling beside Dorn, took his arm and began to bathe it. He winced. The blood covered her fingers.
"My blood on your hands!" he exclaimed, morbidly. "German blood!"
"Kurt, you're out of your head," retorted Lenore, hotly. "If you dare to say that again I'll—" She broke off.
"What will you do?"
Lenore faltered. What would she do? A revelation must come, sooner or later, and the strain had begun to wear upon her. She was stirred to her depths, and instincts there were leaping. No sweet, gentle, kindly sympathy would avail with this tragic youth. He must be carried by storm. Something of the violence he had shown with Glidden seemed necessary to make him forget himself. All his whole soul must be set in one direction. He could not see that she loved him, when she had looked it, acted it, almost spoken it. His blindness was not to be endured.
"Kurt Dorn, don't dare to—to say that again!"
She ceased bathing his arm, and looked up at him suddenly quite pale.