see her lover--to go out West and find him. Impulses with her were rather
rare and inhibited, but this one made her tremble. If Glenn was well again
he must have vastly changed from the moody, stone-faced, and haunted-eyed
man who had so worried and distressed her. He had embarrassed her, too, for
sometimes, in her home, meeting young men there who had not gone into the
service, he had seemed to retreat into himself, singularly aloof, as if his
world was not theirs.

Again, with eager eyes and quivering lips, she read the letter. It
contained words that lifted her heart. Her starved love greedily absorbed
them. In them she had excuse for any resolve that might bring Glenn closer
to her. And she pondered over this longing to go to him.

Carley had the means to come and go and live as she liked. She did not
remember her father, who had died when she was a child. Her mother had left
her in the care of a sister, and before the war they had divided their time
between New York and Europe, the Adirondacks and Florida, Carley had gone
in for Red Cross and relief work with more of sincerity than most of her
set. But she was really not used to making any decision as definite and
important as that of going out West alone. She had never been farther west
than Jersey City; and her conception of the West was a hazy one of vast
plains and rough mountains, squalid towns, cattle herds, and uncouth
ill-clad men.

So she carried the letter to her aunt, a rather slight woman with a kindly
face and shrewd eyes, and who appeared somewhat given to old-fashioned
garments.

"Aunt Mary, here's a letter from Glenn," said Carley. "It's more of a
stumper than usual. Please read it."