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“I wanted to speak to you alone, Stacey,” she said. “So when I heard you leave the library I slipped on a coat and came out here.”

Stacey was genuinely touched, but also apprehensive—as one always is toward the mother of one’s fiancée—for fear that she was going to reprove him for something in his behavior to her daughter.

“Oh, but I’ve kept you a long time!” he stammered. “Aren’t you cold?”

“Stacey,” said Mrs. Latimer, looking gravely into the young man’s face, “you’re going to the war.”

“How did you know?” he exclaimed.

“I’ve seen it coming for many days,” she replied, “and to-night I was sure. You came to tell Marian.”

“Yes. How very, very good of you to want to speak to me and to wait for me here outside!”

She shook her head. “Come! Let’s walk up and down for a few minutes,” she said, and took his arm.

“Mrs. Latimer,” he begged, “you’re not going to tell me that I’m wrong? It’s been so hard for me to decide. You’re not going to tell me that I owe it to Marian to stay? It would be so sweet to stay!”