before the battle began, but determined to play her part bravely.
She watched him over the banisters as he stepped into the hall and greeted the children with unusual tenderness.
He took Lucy's little form up and placed her arms around his neck.
"Now hug me long, and hard, and kiss me sweet," he whispered.
The child squeezed his neck and, placing her hands on his cheeks, softly kissed his lips and eyes as she had often seen her mother do. He ran his hand gently through her brown curls that seemed a perfect mixture of her mother's and his own, and Ruth thought his hand trembled as he kissed her again.
"I never saw you quite so beautiful, my baby, as this morning," he said, as he placed her on the floor.
When he entered the room upstairs Ruth had recovered her composure and stood waiting, her petite figure drawn to its full height, her anxious face unusually thin, her eyes, set in the dark rings of a sleepless night, looking blacker and stormier than ever in the shadows of her disheveled hair.
"Sorry I could not come sooner, Ruth," he began, with evident embarrassment. "But I did not get to sleep until just before day, and I was so exhausted I slept until noon."
"Let us waste no words," said the soft, round voice. "I have waited long; I am waiting still for
