In the middle of the afternoon on the first Sunday in October, John and Laura Mae found themselves alone together in the garden. Little Laura Gene had been put to bed for her afternoon nap and Mrs. Chatterton was in the library outlining a speech to give at the missionary society meeting the next day.

It was an unusually late fall; the air was still as warm as if it were in the middle of the summer. The sky was clear except for a few fleecy white clouds just above the horizon in the east. The autumn leaves on the trees rustled as the breeze passed through the,. The gladiolas, dahlias, and asters were still in bloom. John noted all these things but they only served as a background for the one thing that held his attention, the loveliness of Laura Mae. It would not be long now until two full years since the close of the war would have passed and Laura Mae would have to keep her promise to Mrs. Chatterton. John thought of this and decided to ask her, this very afternoon, to marry him.

"John, are there pretty flowers in France?" Laura Mae asked after a long silence, during which each was absorbed in thoughts of his own.

"I'll say there are, but I spent most of my time where things were not so pleasant to look at," John said and wondered why she was thinking about France.

"I would like to go over there and see that country, maybe I could answer several questions for myself if I did." She still seemed to be lost in deep thought.

"It might be possible to arrange it so all of us could go across the ocean together and look around at some of the countries on the other side. If I had not been hurt in the war and had been my own boss, I think I would have traveled for a while, and saw the sights of interest in Europe before coming home. My buddy is still over in France; he is doing reconstruction work over there. I wish he would come back home; I would persuade him to go into business with me here in Kingsford," John said seriously.

"Why did he stay in France?" Laura Mae asked, not having any idea that John's buddy was anyone that she knew, for John had taken his mother's advice and had never mentioned that his friend's name was Gene.

"He had a streak of bad luck. His young wife died during the war, after that, he was not himself at all. He kept wishing that he would be killed in battle. When the Armistice was signed, he chose to stay in France to help rebuild some of the damaged places. I get letters from him quite often. Say, would you like to see some of the pictures that we took while we were over there in France?" John asked enthusiastically.

"Yes, I surely would like to see them," she replied with eagerness.

"I have a whole album full of them. I will run up to my room and get it." He hurried into the house and soon returned with an album bulging with snapshots. They sat down on the garden bench, near the rose arbor and John began to turn the pages.

"These first pictures are not war pictures, some of them go back as far as my Freshman year in high school." They looked at them together, laughing at the poses of John that seemed ridiculous, since he had not grown out of his days of boyish pranks.

"Now, we are coming to some snapshots of camp life," John said. "There is a good one of my buddy on the next page. He surely is a fine fellow. I have known him from back in college and I think he is as near perfect as a man can be. The French dames could not impress him the least." He turned the page slowly. Laura Mae drew in a short breath and looked closer to make sure that her eyes were not deceiving her.

"Gene," she gasped, then stared ahead, motionless. John heard her utter the name.

"Do you know him?" he asked, puzzled.

"He—he is my husband," she sobbed and laughed, hysterically.

"May, you cannot be serious! His wife's name was Laura Mae Porter. She died during the war."

"John, I am Laura Mae Porter."

"I can't understand. How is it that you call yourself May Elison?"

"Father's name is Eli Porter, he became so angry when he found out that I had secretly married Gene Whitmer, that he drove me from home. It while I was looking for work here that I decided to take my father's first name and add 'son' to it. I did not want Gene's friends to know that his wife was unprotected," she explained, wiping tears from her eyes.

"Gene told me that he had married secretly. He got word that his wife was in Denver, then read of her death in Oakdale. Why should a newspaper publish an absolute lie? I read it myself. It was that news that made him choose to stay over in France. He could not bear to think of coming back home without his wife being here to love and work for."

"John, my father's unmarried sister's name was Maura May Porter, too. She died during the war. It must have been the account of her death that you boys read."

"Well, I'll be darned," John managed to say in his bewilderment. Other words seemed to fail him.

"My little baby girl, John, I named her after both of us." She said. "I have a picture of Gene in my room. Don't you believe me now?"

"Laura Gene," John uttered to himself. "Do you know, the first day I saw you, I thought I had seen either you or your picture somewhere. Of course, I had. Gene showed me a postcard-sized picture of you."

"Did you say he is well? Was he wounded in the war like you were?" Her voice was anxious and high pitched.

"He did not get a scratch in the war. In his last letter, he said that he was well. I am the only one in the world that he has written to since he read of the death of Laura May Porter. I made him promise that he would write to me," John explained. "Come, Laura Mae, let's break this news to mother!" He took hold of her arm and pulled her toward the house. She was hysterical and could not think clearly at all.

They entered the library and Mrs. Chatterton turned and looked up at them. Laura Mae broke loose from John and rushed to his mother. Dropping down on her knees, she buried her face in the lady's lap. She sobbed violently, as the flood of tears streamed from her eyes.

"Whatever has happened, John?" the mother asked anxiously.

"We have made a great discovery, Mother. My buddy is her husband!" John explained briefly.

"I do not understand." Mrs. Chatterton was bewildered.

"She changed her name to find work, it was a way to shield his name, but she is Gene Whitmer's wife."

Laura Mae looked up into Mrs. Chatterton's kind gray eyes. Tears were streaming down her pale young cheeks, as she asked in a broken voice, "Can you forgive me for deceiving you about my name?"

"May, May, my darling girl," Mrs. Chatterton said, taking the girl's face between her soft warm hands, caressingly. "It is you who have suffered for what you did. You will always be the same to me whether you are May Elison or Laura Mae Whitmer. Of course, I forgive you! Your punishment has been far too severe already!"

"If we had known," John commented kindly, "We could have straightened things out for you long ago." He was thankful that he had not suggested to her that she could marry him to keep her child. Now she could always be a friend to him, without ever knowing how he had felt toward her. Laura Mae laughed and cried; the shock was almost too much for her. Mrs. Chatterton led her up the stairs to her bedroom and urged her to lie down and rest. The girl was grateful, she wanted to be alone so she could think and pray, as her mother always did when an important crisis had passed.

"We will fix up a cablegram to send to your husband and I am sure that you two will soon be together again, but I don't know how I will ever get along without you," Mrs. Chatterton said soothingly s she patted Laura Mae's hand, then she left the room, closing the door behind her.

Laura Mae cried and cried. It gave her so much relief. She could see how it had been a horrible mistake to have used a false name. But she never dreamed that Gene would quit writing his Uncle Everett in Oakdale. Poor Gene, how he must have suffered after he had read the account of her aunt's death, thinking that it was his wife. She tried to sleep, to rest her whirling brain, but she could not. After a time, she dried her eyes and went to her study table and wrote a long letter to her mother. "Perhaps Father has forgiven me by now and will want to see me again," she thought as she sealed the envelope.

Meanwhile, downstairs, John went to get Gene's address. The doorbell rang. The butler showed Edith Randall in.

"Oh, Edith, come in here," Emily Chatterton said in a low but excited voice, "I have news for you!

"Whatever can it be? You are all excited!"

"We have just found out that May's husband is alive and well over in France."

"You don't say!" Edith was overjoyed. "How did you find out?"

"It was just by chance. Edith, it was such a big misunderstanding all the way around."

"I am glad you have found him; she has suffered so much."

"We are sending word right now for him to come home," the woman said. "The reason that he did not come back to the United States, he thought all the time that his young wife was dead."

"Where is May now?" Edith asked.

"It was a great shock for her and I had her go to her room to rest, for a while. F you wanted to see her, perhaps it would be well to wait until some other time."

"I wanted to get a pattern of a certain one of her baby dresses, but it can wait."

"How do you feel, Edith?"

"All right, but I will be glad when it is all over again. Little Bobby amuses me. He has seen me working on little things so gets out the mail-order catalogs and picks out first one baby and then another that he wants me to buy. He will surely be happy to have a little sister or brother to play with him."

"Bless his little heart, he's so sweet," the lovely lady remarked. "Edith, I might as well tell you that May's real name is Whitmer and not Elison."

"Is that so? I knew a young fellow at college by the name of Whitmer. I remember how we girls used to try and flirt with him, but it did not do a bit of good. He was head over heels in love with some girl in his home town. His name was Eugene."

"Do you mean that you know Eugene Whitmer too?" Emily Chatterton was amazed. "Why he is May's husband and John's buddy, and now I find that he is an old school mate of yours."

"Well, I declare! How did you make the discovery after all of these months of anxious waiting?" Edith asked.

Mrs. Chatterton went briefly into detail about the death of the old maid aunt whom Gene had mistaken for his wife. The mystery was solved through a snapshot in a photograph album. When she finished, Edith said, "Oh, I am so happy for her! She has a good husband. I will have to hurry home now. I left Bobby asleep. His daddy is there in the house but if he waked and finds that I am not there, he may cry."

After Edith had gone, John brought down Gene's address and prepared the message:

"Gene- Your wife and baby girl are well. Aunt Laura May from Denver died during war. Come to Colonial Heights, 8103. John."

The cost of sending the message was immaterial, for the Chatterton's were wealthy.