The great sky shop Dixie clipper, fresh form its voyage across the Atlantic, roared down over Long Island Sound, skimmed the water once or twice before settling, then sloshed on up to its runway at Port Washington. A battery of cameras and newsreel men pressed close to catch Tyrone Power and Annabella as they disembarked from their honeymoon in Europe. There they were--Ty and Annabella, hand in hand, laughing glad to be back, Apparently facing lifetime of happiness together!

But underneath her smiling mask the bride fought an ever-growing fear. Would war--this conflict Europe had talked about for so long--would it finally come? Would it strike France? Before her eyes rose the image of a little girl with sandy hair, even-set eyes and Annabella's unmistakable smile. Ann, child of her first marriage, who lived with Annabella's family in France Ann, who had been spoken of at the time Annabella wedded Tyrone, but who would have remained inconspicuously in her French background, because, it is Annabella's way to live quietly and inconspicuously.

Two days later the headlines answered her question. War at last. She was torn with love and terror. No longer was she only Annabella the star whose face was familiar to motion-picture screens around the world. No longer was she just the glamorous person envied by millions of fans for her marriage to Tyrone Power, Hollywood's ranking heart appeal. She was also a mother, and she wanted her child with her, safe from the crowding horrors of the new war. It mattered not that the glamour bride of the hour would hardly be expected to bring the child of a former marriage into the scene. Just one thing mattered beyond Ann--that was Ty.

Tyrone watched the misery grow in the eyes of his wife as momentarily the situation grew worse in Europe. The words she would not utter, lest they spoil this otherwise perfect interlude of honeymoon, began to flash across to his keen intuitive mind. He knew there could be no happiness for him without happiness for Annabella. It was then he made the decision that showed his complete unselfishness. Annabella's child must be brought back to live with them. Regardless of anything or anybody, little Ann must come home to him and Annabella.

Frantic cables and telephone calls from Ty and Annabella to France failed to get through. All wires were needed for government purposes. They haunted the cable and ambassadors' offices. Time was pressing; Ty's studio was phoning him to report immediately for a picture. When it became apparent no word could be gotten through to France, Ty and Annabella made their decision. She should fly back on the clipper, take her chances on getting through the war-torn countries to reach her own mother's home in Bordeaux.

It took brave courageous hearts to make such a decision. It took more than that. It required the all consuming passion of mother love that overrides all thought of self, all fears. Ty Power knew that. He saw the stricken look in Annabella's eyes and knew it. Loving her the more for it, he consented to her going.

Two days later he stood alone as the giant clipper took to the skies, bearing away the woman he loved to God knew what dangers. Heavy at heart, he caught the next plane for Hollywood and began the anxious waiting for Annabella's return.

Little did he know how many moments there were when she was sure she would never see him again. Never see that beautiful home that was hers and Ty's in California. For the hazards began almost from the moment the giant plane landed in the neutral port of Lisbon, Portugal.

In her first glimpse of Spain the havoc of war spread before her like a grinning spectre as she began the slow trek across this country, laid bare in its four year revolution.

Would her own land someday look like this? The unbelievable filth, the poverty, the ragged tatters on people who walked in hopeless desolation--all cried out the story of war. In a train composed of a boxcar, a mailcoach and one passenger coach that crept slowly through the once glorious country of Spain, Tyrone Power's wife sat and wept for and with a world so lost. And all the time she grew more frantic for the safety of the family she was as yet unable to contact in far-off Bordeaux.

There was nothing to appease her hunger but soup and black brad that was literally alive. Resulting illness added to her heartache. The train, creeping on and on ten and fifteen miles an hour, was halted every fifteen minutes while Annabella's papers were gone over again and again. And still none of her telephone messages could be put through to Bordeaux.

At last the border was reached and that train halted at the town of Irun. Across the bridge lay France. As she walked across, memories of what had taken place on that bridge filled her with nausea; memories of the refugees, women and children, who had been shot down like flies in their attempt to flee over this bridge into France, the haven that seemed like heaven to those people of Spain.

Annabella had reason to thank God she had chosen the screen as a career, for, once across the border in the French town of Hayden, after her papers had once more been scrutinized and passed she was recognized by the army headquarters and given the one remaining seat in a trainload of soldiers going toward Bordeaux. But even their kindness and efforts failed to get her repeated and frantic telephone messages through to her family. Would they be there? Was she even then too late?" Had they been evacuated?

The horror of Spain still haunted her. The memory of the church she had stolen into during her journey through Spain still haunted her. A gaping hole in the wall, the shattered windowpanes that had once reflected the sun with rare beauty, the desecrated altar had filled her with pity. Yet, as she had kneeled there alone in a holy spot that also knew war, she had felt some measure of peace.

At last, the army train deposited her in a suburb near Bordeaux. It was midnight in the French town. The rain beating down in torrents, added to the complete darkness. Not a light could be seen. In Hollywood, so many worlds away, there were warmth and safety and comfort and light aplenty; but it was in a rain-drenched hell of blackness thousands of miles away that Ty Power's wife stood, along and miserable.

It was then Annabella felt sure she would never see Ty again. Their beautiful home rose before her eyes like some dream. It had never existed; only this black, drenching void seemed real.

Slowly she made her way to an inn. Soldiers crowded it.

"I wish," the landlady told her, "I had two hotels I might give them." And something of the grim resignation of these people who had an unpleasant task to perform and who were going about that task unflinchingly filled her heart to overflowing.

It gave her courage to go on. Finding her way through the blackness to the main highway, she stepped onto the road.

Down the highway there came a rumble of wheels. Annabella stepped into the road and called. There was a slamming of brakes as a large truck, laden with soldiers, came to a halt. The last lap of a journey few women would have the courage to face--and few men would have the courage to permit--was made by the wife of one of America's best loved stars in a truckload of French soldiers. All they asked in return was her autograph.

It was not yet daylight as she beat madly on the door of her mother's house. For one sickening moment she was sure the quiet blackness within meant they had already gone. Then, when she felt she could bear no more, the door moved slowly open and still in the blackout maintained throughout France, she entered her mother's home and saw the child for whom she had risked her life.

In Hollywood, Tyrone waited for the message that could not be gotten through. Numbed with anxiety, he moved through his days of work at the studio, punctured by the blaring news flashes of the omnipresent radio.

War had been declared in France for over a week now. Confusion prevailed. Posts vacated by men leaving for the front had not yet been taken over by others. A visit by Annabella and her mother to market for vegetables revealed there were none--the vegetable pickers had joined their troops and there was no one to take their places. Annabella and her mother tramped to the near-by fields and with dozens of other women gathered their own vegetables.

Always, of course, there hung over this glorious reunion the thought of the parting that must come, only fate knew for how long.

At last, the day came when they must depart to catch the last clipper leaving the Lisbon port. With the family's glad sacrifice of the last petrol they could possibly obtain, they set out in the car for the French border. It was dark before they arrived there and the beating rain added to the danger of driving in the complete blackout. One room was found vacant in the inn and Annabella, her child Ann, her mother, her brother and uncle gladly shared its shelter, sleeping about on the floor.

The next morning found Annabella's fate hanging in the balance. Was it to be happiness beyond words with her husband and child in far-off California, or desperation in a war-shattered world that had made her captive? Just so close did it come; for when Annabella reported with her papers, she lacked a certificate of circulation.

She protested they had pronounced her papers in order when she passed through last time and was told that since then, a matter of days, the new law demanding a certificate of circulation had been passed. She must return to Bordeaux.

Annabella knew there would not be enough petrol to make the return journey. She knew, even so, the last clipper would be gone, leaving her, a French citizen, stranded in Europe. The prefect of police recognized the seriousness of her plight and telephoned back to Bordeaux, assuming entire responsibility for the actress he recognized. Even as he phoned, her eye fell on a memorandum on his desk that read, "Watch out for Salvadore Hernandez arriving on next train. He is a spy."

Death, sure and sudden, stared up from that message. Once again, Annabella gave thanks to God that her face was known because of the screen.

The slow trek through Spain began again. She and Ann had stood on that fateful bridge between the two countries and waved good-by to her family. Her mother was tied there by the boy, Annabella's brother, who had already gone to the front, and by the other brother who was soon to go. Her heart would not let her leave. And so they waved goodbye--perhaps for years.

The clipper was filled with passengers unused to flying, who wept and prayed and screamed as the great ship dove through the down dragging air drafts. The headlines proclaiming the ship down in the Atlantic brought the final shock to Tyrone who had waited helplessly through those two weeks. Then, as the sudden shining of the sun through black clouds, the work came--the clipper had arrived safely in New York.

Immediately Annabella and Ann boarded a plane for California. Ty, who was tied up in his picture, sent on Bill Gallagher to meet them in Tucson with flowers and letters for Annabella and this child for whom they had both risked so much.

Tears of gladness, of unbelievable joy were theirs as Annabella and Ty were finally reunited.

They have Ann home with them and neither feels the price is too great for the happiness it brings them.

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