She amazed him--held him spellbound.

Here was the sympathy--and something else--a nameless need--for which he yearned.

The moment was fraught with incomprehensible forces.

Lane's sore heart responded to her rapt look, to the sudden strange passion of her pale face.

Swiftly he divined that Mel Iden gloried in the presence of a maimed and proven soldier.
"Mel, I'll come to see you," he said, breaking the spell.