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Octavie felt as if she had passed into a stage of existence which was

like a drearay

house with its sloping eaves Areen, and dimly, she

saw familiar faces and heard voices as if they ca her Her dead Ed of his heart against her and the agonizing

rapture of his kisses striving to awake her It was as if the spirit of

life and the awakening spring had given back the soul to her youth and

bade her rejoice

It was many hours later that Octavie drew the locket fro appeal in her glance

"It was the night before an engagement," he said "In the hurry of the

encounter, and the retreat next day, I never ht of course I had lost it in the heat of the struggle,

but it was stolen"

"Stolen," she shuddered, and thought of the dead soldier with his face

uplifted to the sky in an agony of supplication

Edht of his messmate; the one who had

lain far back in the shadow; the one who had said nothing