once."

The second one was wholly characteristic:

"Willing to take chance. Am camping on job. Come home." It was signed:
"J. E. Middlekauffer."

When he got to his room, the Colonel sat down to think. He knew no one
of that name--had never even heard it before. Perhaps Francesca--it
would have been like her, to work with him and say nothing until she had
something hopeful to say.

His heart warmed toward her, then he forgot her entirely in a sudden
realisation of the vast meaning of the two bits of yellow paper. Why, it
was hope; it was a fighting chance presenting itself where hitherto had
been only despair! He could scarcely believe it. He took the two
telegrams closer to the light, and read the blessed words over and over
again, then, trembling with weakness and something more, tottered back
to his chair.

Until then, he had not known how weary he was, nor how the long weeks of
anxiety and fruitless effort had racked him to the soul. As one may bear
a burden bravely, yet faint the moment it is lifted, his strength failed
him in the very hour that he had no need of it. He sat there for a long
time before he was able to shut off the light and creep into bed, with
his tear-wet cheek pillowed upon one telegram, and a wrinkled hand
closely clasping the other, as though holding fast to the message meant
the keeping of the hope it brought.

Utterly exhausted, he slept until noon. When he woke, it was with the