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house.
    Geraldine stood before her father, looking from him to Phil, an icy hand closing about her young heart. But her voice was quite steady. “All right, Dad — let’s have it. Straight from the shoulder, like always.”
    Phil thrust his hands deeply into his pockets, bunched into fists, and turned his back. Slowly the color drained from Geraldine’s face and Beth made a soft, whimpering little sound. But Tom met his daughter’s eyes. “There was a cablegram for you this afternoon, Gerry — and one for Mrs. Parker.”
    “A — cablegram?” Geraldine repeated wonderingly.
    “Tip’s — been found alive and well, in a remote fishing village in South Vietnam,” said Tom. “He escaped from the hands of the Viet Cong.”
    For a moment Geraldine stood very still. She was like a woman turned to stone. Her eyes were wide and dark, herface as white as paper. The words said themselves over and over in her stunned, unbelieving mind.
Tip’s alive and well
—
in a remote fishing village in South Vietnam.
    Somehow, words struggled through her stupefaction.
    “Oh — I’m so glad! I’m so
glad!”
    A little of the tension went out of Tom’s face and he said thickly:
    “I knew you would be, kid.”
    Beth looked straight at Phil, but Phil stood rigid and silent.
    Geraldine was trying to adjust herself to the fact that Tip, who had so loved life and who had lived it to the full, was to go on living. For the moment there was no room in her mind for anything else. She did not know that tears were slipping down her white face, or that she was swaying a little, clinging to the back of a chair because her knees were threatening at any moment to desert her.
    “The War Department notified Mrs. Parker,” said Tom after a moment. “And then there was this cablegram for you, from Tip.”
    He held it out to her and the flimsy paper trembled a little in his hand. He smiled wryly.
    Shakily her fingers drew out the message. It said,
Alive and well. See you soon. Loving you always. Tip.
    She looked up then and straight into Phil’s white, ravaged face. She was engaged to Phil — and now her husband was coming home!
    For a long, stunned moment she met Phil’s eyes. Neither of them knew when Tom and Beth slipped out of the room, leaving them alone. She only knew that she could not stop looking at Phil.
    “Phil!” she whispered at last, desperately. “Phil — what happens — to
us
— now?”
    And Phil, who had had the whole afternoon to face the stunning news, and who had himself well in hand, smiled faintly and said quietly, “You’re going to have your husband back, and be terribly happy with him — what else? After all, you love him.”
    “I love
you
,” Geraldine said unsteadily.
    Phil made a little swiftly controlled gesture, his face gray, his eyes tired and sick.
    “I’m here — he’s far away. It’s easy when you’re as lonely as you have been to kid yourself,” he told her patiently. “But when he is back, and you see him again, you’ll forget that there was ever anybody else, even for a little while — and that’s the way it’s got to be, Geraldine. He’s been in hell. He’s dreamed of a heaven he never expected to see again, but now that he’s got his chance to live again, we can’t rob him, Geraldine. We could never live with ourselves — or each other, if we did that. And of course, once you see him again, you’ll forget this — this interlude.”
    “I won’t, Phil! I won’t! I can’t ever. I love you so terribly!” Her voice was a small, strained whisper of agony straight from her heart.
    Phil said evenly, “I saw your eyes, Geraldine, when your father told you he was alive. You were completely off guard. There was a radiance in your face I’ve never seen before. And that’s
right
, Gerry. That’s the way it’s got to be. He’s got to come back and find you waiting for him, he has gone on loving you! There is no lower, more wicked thing two people can do than to stay here at