"Good-bye," he whispered hoa.r.s.ely. "I--love--you--" then he tore himself away, swinging up the steps and into the car.

The train began to move amid a great storm of cheering and waving of service hats. Betty saw it all dimly, through a mist of tears. She pressed her hand against her lips to still their trembling.

"Good-bye, dear," she murmured brokenly.

CHAPTER XVIII

AFTER THE BOYS LEFT

"Well--it's--over," sighed Grace, as they made their way slowly down the platform to where the machine stood waiting. "I feel as though I'd like to go home and cry for a week without stopping."

"Favorite indoor sport," retorted Mollie, wiping her own eyes impatiently.

"I'm sure the boys would admire us for doing that."

"I don't think they'd admire us very much if they could see us now,"

sighed Amy, dabbing a rather red nose with a generous portion of talc.u.m powder. "Crying is so terribly damaging to my particular style of beauty!

Every time I do it I vow I never will again--"

"And then the boys do foolish things like going away to be shot," finished Mollie, "and--poof, go all our good resolutions."

"But you girls are all Helen of Troys compared to me when I cry," said Grace, her tear-dimmed eyes fixed mournfully on s.p.a.ce. "Why, after I've had a good cry I cover up all the mirrors in the house for a couple of days afterward."

"I guess," sighed Betty, "that just about everybody we know went away on that train this morning. Oh, girls, I feel as though somebody were dead."

"Well, I'd rather be, than look like this," said Grace, eyeing her somewhat disheveled reflection in the tiny mirror somberly.

"Oh, you're not quite as bad as that, Gracie," Betty comforted her, laughing a little despite the ache at her heart. "A little cold water and a curling iron will work wonders--"

"Betty," cried Grace, pausing in the act of applying still more powder to the tip of her nose and regarding the Little Captain with a horrified expression, "why drag the mention of such unromantic things into the open--"

"Goodness, nothing could be much more unromantic than straight hair and red noses," broke in Mollie practically. "It's lucky the boys don't do this every day--I'd be a wreck in a week!"

"Well, at least you'd be wrecked in a good cause," said Betty, half wistfully, half whimsically.

"Goodness, you'll make me cry again after I've just powdered my nose,"

cried Grace in alarm, and the foolishness of it made them all laugh.

"You're a goose, Gracie," Mollie commented. "But I love you, just the same. Now," she added, "who's going to take the wheel while I do my duty with the powder puff? I need both hands you know--"

"Heavens, don't let Amy do it," cried Grace, in still greater alarm. "She doesn't know a thing about it. Mollie, what are you doing?"

"You put the powder on then," Mollie suggested, and Amy reached for the vanity case. "If you can't drive you can at least do that much. Amy!

you're getting it in my eyes. Do be careful!"

"Mollie Billette, if you dare use that word again," cried Amy, her eyes twinkling, "I'll blind you with powder--just for spite!"

The girls chuckled, and Mollie, figuratively speaking, threw up her hands.

"Oh, all right," she said, meekly yielding up her nose to treatment. "I surrender. Only, Amy, do be--"

Amy raised the puff threateningly, and the badgered one continued hastily: "I was only going to say--do be a nice little girl."

"As if I were not always that!" retorted Amy, dabbing so liberally at the unfortunate member that Mollie sneezed, b.u.mped over a rock in the road and nearly dashed the car against that long-threatening tree.

"Oh, goodness! I was sure we'd never come out of this alive," cried Grace miserably. "Isn't it enough to have our hearts broken, without our necks in the bargain?"

"Oh, might as well make a good job of it," returned Mollie cheerfully. "I don't know that I'd mind very much, anyway."

"Oh, now I know I'm going to cry!" wailed Grace, wiping a starting tear with her handkerchief. "Just when we're almost at Camp, too, and apt to meet somebody any minute--"

"Didn't you just hear Betty say," Mollie broke in, with the patient air one a.s.sumes in speaking to little children, "that everybody who is really worth anything has gone away on that train?"

"Well, I guess I didn't altogether mean that," said Betty thoughtfully.

"Of course there is the medical personnel that is stationed here indefinitely and very much against its will. And, of course," she added, after a moment's pause, "there is Sergeant Mullins."

"Goodness! we did forget all about him, didn't we?" agreed Mollie, as though surprised at herself. "I don't know how we could have done such a thing!"

"And he's simply desperate at being kept here," added Amy suddenly. "He's done everything he possibly could to get away, but they say they need him more here than on the other side, and so, of course, he can't do a thing."

"How did you know?" they asked in chorus, growing gleeful as she colored under their gaze.

"Why, he--he told me," she stammered.

"Aha! I have you now, woman," cried Mollie, with a deep villain frown.

"Secret meetings on moonlit nights--"

"This one happened to be in the broad daylight, in the glare of noon," Amy retorted. "And if you can find anything secret or romantic about that, you're welcome to."

Mollie stared for a minute, then joined in the laugh.

"Strike one," she cried. "But do tell us, Amy clear, about this meeting with Sergeant Mullins that occurred in the broad light of day. It must have been interesting--though unforeseen," she added hastily, as Amy turned a suspicious eye upon her.

"Yes, Amy, I humbly beseech you," added Grace.

"No, sir, I have been insulted enough," declared Amy stoutly, and nothing they could say seemed to have any effect upon her decision.

"You ask her, Betty," entreated Grace at last, turning to the Little Captain, who had been very silent and thoughtful during the ride. "She'll do anything for you, you know."

Betty brought back her wandering attention with a start. She had been thinking of those last words of Allen's, had been seeing again that exalted look in his eyes, could feel again the trembling of his hands as he grasped hers in a grip that hurt--hurt gloriously.

"Wh-what did you say?" she asked, dimly conscious of having been addressed. "I--I'm afraid I wasn't listening."

"I'm afraid you weren't," returned Grace, throwing a loving arm about her.