Excerpt: Beside the bed, Mark Carter still stared dumbly down at the girl he loved. The girl who tomorrow—no, today, for it was nearly morning now—was to have become his wife. He tried to speak, but his throat was too twisted and thick with pain for words to come. His broad shoulders were slumped. His brown eyes blurred with tears. A queer, strained sound of awful grief tore itself from somewhere deep within his chest, like the moan of an animal in torment. A hand touched his shoulder. "Come, Mark. We can do no more good here."