Four years later

A forest of white crosses on the battlefields of France.

Two British soldiers moved among them, seeking a special name.

At length they found it.

“Ah, here it is! Here he lies. Well, there are many above ground, hale and hearty, who but for him would be lying as he lies to-day; and I’m one of them.

“Brave? Good Lord, he didn’t know what fear meant! Each time he went over the top you might have thought he was going to his bridal. He used to call this bloody war the Great Chance. And such a pal! Do you mind how it kept our spirits up only to look at him, let alone his hand on your shoulder or his voice in your ear?

“But life-saving was his passion. No place was too hot for him, if a helpless man lay there to be brought in. V.C.? He earned it thirty times over! And always came through all right.

“But at last they got him, and no mistake about it. Both legs, and through the chest; past operating.

“I was with him at the end. He’d been lying very still, just groaning a bit on the quiet; when suddenly he rises up on his elbow and shouts, ‘Coming!’ clear as a bugle call. ‘Coming!’ he says, and falls back dead.”

The two stood looking at the simple white cross and the grave it marked; then turned to watch an old man, in sombre clothing, who moved among the graves, anxiously seeking. He carried in his hand a wreath of immortelles.

At last he drew near, read Luke Sparrow’s name, and, baring his head, fell upon his knees beside the cross, and sobbed.

The soldiers turned away, respecting the old man’s grief.

After a while he rose, laid the wreath at the foot of the cross, and went his way.

Luke Sparrow’s comrades came back and stooped to read what was written on a card attached to the wreath.

“Hullo!” said one, “The old chap has made a mistake. See here!”

“Leave it alone,” said the other soldier. “He was worth a score of barts! Let him keep the wreath.”

Then they also went their way.

And the winds of God blew gently over that forest of plain crosses, bearing the vast army of heroic names, which are not forgotten before God, but inscribed for ever in the Book of Life.

If sales are a criterion of popularity, Mrs. Barclay’s novels have certainly achieved a prodigious success.

The publication of her books has now reached upwards of 2,000,000 copies, with an ever growing demand. And all of this is due to the author’s extraordinary ability in handling her theme, for her genius in blending material luxury and spiritual mystery, and for her skillful working out of well rounded plots.

Here is a list of Mrs. Barclay’s books:

The story of a factory girl, a merry madcap, who by sheer force of character becomes stage star and successful business woman.

Ethel Dell writes fiction the whole world reads. Here are six of her “long short” stories, each one containing unusual and strikingly dramatic situations.

The romance of a young girl rescued, from a convent for illegitimate children, by a poet, and of her stormy but successful attainment.

A real American novel. Sentiment without sentimentality; drama without melodrama; happy but not gushing.

A brilliant novel of stage life, with an unusual and unconventional heroine. A frankly daring discussion of the sex problem.

The charming, amusing, and original story of a semi-invalid and his secretary companion.

The romance of a young girl who breaks away from her humdrum environment to find adventure and happiness at the end of the road.

Amusing and colorful stories of action, and fantastic adventures, by the clever author of The Lady from Long Acre, A Rogue by Compulsion, etc.

An exquisite fantasy contrived with delicious humor, with a lovable heroine who has a “warm heart and a largish size in shoes.”

A gorgeously exotic story from the Hindu, in which a marvelously beautiful Queen amuses herself with many lovers until she meets one who “loves with hatred instead of love.”

Heywood Broun of the New York Tribune declares this one of the best Western stories he ever read.

A man’s size novel of the West in which a lost mine, a mysterious jug, and a distinctly original type of hero play important parts.

Essays and criticisms collected from the Pall Mall Gazette and other sources. Never before published in book form. This volume completes our 15–volume set of the works of Oscar Wilde. Semi-flexible cloth or flexible leather.

An Arabian Nights entertainment equal in its field to anything this writer’s distinguished father, author of The Light of Asia, ever conceived. The fantastic chronicle of a character who existed in many eras.

A whimsical, wholly delightful adventurous assay at country life. This volume carries on in a delectable fashion all that exquisiteness in writing that characterized an earlier book, The Open Window. The story progresses from the buying of the old farm through all the humorous entangling mysteries that enhearten and confound the amateur householder.

An exquisite fantasy contrived with delicious humor with a lovable small heroine who has “a warm heart and a largish size in shoes”—a tale of utmost charm and much of the lore of the East and West that has filled the story-books of the world. Here is a magic which calls to young and old alike. You will love Fiona and her father the Student and undoubtedly you will be well disposed toward the Urchin—but whether you will care for Jeconiah—well you must decide that for yourself.

The two friends, so different in temperament and physique, but one in understanding—last to leave the burning ship, are finally thrown half dead on scorching African sands.

Six days later a ship’s boat plunges through the breakers containing six bodies, apparently dead from hunger and thirst—but one breathes, a woman. Face to face with the eternal impulses of life, these three souls, completely isolated from the civilized world, work out their destiny through the instincts and impulses of primitive man. A fantastic tale, yet real and plausible, thrilling in parts, and as whimsical as The City of Beautiful Nonsense.

One of the very prettiest of springtime romances—a tale of exuberant young spirits intoxicated with the springtime of living, of love gone adventuring on the rough road—a story, humorous with the gay impudences of a young Eve who is half-afraid and altogether delighted with her fairy-prince.