He would see the little soldier-worshipping Bessy Bell, and if by talking hours and hours, by telling the whole of his awful experience of war, he could take up some of the time so fraught with peril for her, he would welcome the ordeal of memory.

And Mel Iden--how thought of her seemed tinged with strange regret! Once she and he had been dear friends, and because of a falsehood told by Helen that friendship had not been what it might have been.

Suppose Mel, instead of Helen, had loved him and been engaged to him! Would he have been jilted and would Mel have been lost?
No! It was a subtle thing--that answer of his spirit.

It did not agree with Mel Iden's frank confession.
It might be difficult, he reflected, to approach Mel.

But he would find a way.