The Romance of a Red Cross Hospital
Author: Moore, Frank Frankfort
Date: 2016-12-12T06:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fiction
Description: Ebook prepared by crutledge@knology.net
Rights: Public Domain

TABLE of CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER I

THE appalling news which appeared in all the morning papers had fortunately not interfered with the attendance at Mrs. Morrison’s concert in the Herbert Memorial School-house, Churlington. War—War—War—that was the word that thundered from headline to headline in every paper. To glance at the headlines on any page of any paper was enough to bring before one’s eyes, as in a panoramic picture, the lurid details of a campaign. The large black capitals, three words to a line, had surely the semblance of a battery of heavy guns, and the tall thin letters a little lower down in the array of headlines had all the precision of a troop of light horse carrying lances erect but looking wickedly ready to be lowered for the charge. Anyone reading between the lines—the serried ranks of the suggestive headlines—would have perceived the many details of an army corps above the marching myriads of infantry in even columns of “ long primer ” or “ brevier.”

Never within the history of any newspaper had there been such a demand upon headline type, and all spelt War! War! War! The horrible two-headed vulture, with its vile beaks wide and its obscene talons curled and ready for the clutch, was casting its shadow over every page, and in every household men and women looked at it over each other’s shoulders with an indrawing of breath and then silence—the silence of the chicken-run in the shadow of the sudden hovering of the hawk.

War had been declared throughout Europe, and it was feared that Mrs. Morrison of The Elms had chosen an inopportune date for her concert. For quite five minutes even Mrs. Morrison herself was under such an impression.

“What! War? How provoking! Why on earth could they not have waited until to-morrow? ” she cried, when her maid brought her the news before unfolding the newspaper that lay on the tray beside her early morning cup of tea. “Is it really true, Hutton? You don’t think that it is merely a newspaper scare? Do you think there is anything in it? ” The maid shook her head.

“ It’s all over the paper, ma’am,’’ she said. “ It has crushed out all the Churlington news in the Herald —not a line about the Band of Hope.’’

“ Nonsense! ’’

“ Not a single line, ma’am. Look for yourself.”

“ Then there must be something in the report after all. I wish Annie wouldn’t butter this bread so thickly. It’s not appetizing. Thank goodness, we’ve got rid of most of the tickets. I don’t suppose anyone will turn up.”

That was her opinion at first; but before she had dressed and come downstairs to breakfast she had changed her mind on this point.

“ I don’t believe that it will injure us in the least,” she said to Ida Merritt, when that young lady made an early call, not without trepidation, at The Elms. “ No I believe that everyone will turn up just as they go to church, to talk over the news on their way back.”

And the result proved that her revised opinion as to the effect of a European war upon the attendance at an amateur concert in the Herbert Memorial School-house, in the village of Churlington, was the correct one: for not merely did all the people who had been prevailed on to buy tickets put in an appearance—to buy a ticket for one of Mrs. Morrison’s School-house concerts was by no means equivalent to a guarantee of the purchaser’s attendance—but quite a number of people turned up and bought tickets at the door. It was the first chance that the community had for meeting since war had been declared. Churlington had not a market-place; but Mrs. Morrison got up concerts.

There were groups around the doors half an hour before the advertised time for the opening. Quite half a dozen of the most prominent residents in the neighbourhood, and not all of them on the retired list of the Services either, had distinct views respecting the war and were anxious to place them at the disposal of their friends. Some took the form of prophecies, a good many (from the retired list) were tinged with the glow of a rosy retrospection. Colonel Colvin (late R.E.) had been with Lord Napier of Magdala, and so knew what England could do when her heart was in her work, and Commander Larwell had done things in a gunboat in the Persian Gulf among the slave dhows from Zanzibar, and so knew what the Navy could do when put to it. Mr. William Weston, who had retired from the management of the leading bank in Grimstead, knew for a fact that, without an adequate gold balance, no country could hope to succeed in a war; and Mr. Shanks, who had made a modest fortune in some indefinite business in the North, confessed with the shrewd chuckle of a far-seeing tradesman who has retired in the height of his shrewdness, that within an hour of receiving the morning papers he had laid in a full side of bacon, two gammon hocks and three sacks of flour, to tide his family through the worst of the war.

Everyone boldly expressed his private opinion that war was a terrible thing, whatever other people might say about it, but England was England still, and so the next few months would prove.

War and the desire to talk about it might have been seen on all faces as the people trooped into the school-house, and when Mr. Cooper, the church organist, seated himself at the piano, and instead of starting at once upon the Caprice, attributed on the programme to Strauss, struck the opening chords of “ God save the King,” the audience sprang to their feet and the choir on the platform had no chance of making a single note heard against the strenuous efforts of the stalwarts in the body of the building. Hardly anyone had ever heard the second stanza of the anthem sung in public or in private, but Mrs. Morrison, who had two fat contralto notes in her range, was determined that it should be rescued from the neglect of years of undemonstrative loyalty, and when everyone was sitting down she gave forth the passionate imploration:

O Lord our God arise,
Scatter his enemies
And make them fall.

Some members of the audience knew so little about the matter that, having only an experience of the lady’s poetical ability, they were strongly of the belief that the lines about politics and knavish tricks were interpolated by her, and that they were unworthy of the context; but they concealed their opinions and allowed the choir to lead them in a repetition of the loyal prayer.

When it was over the place resounded with cheers, hats and handkerchiefs were waved with enthusiasm, and Mrs. Morrison, smiling at the front of the platform, took the salute, bowing her acknowledgments.

But another surprise was in store for the audience, for before the cheers had quite subsided, Mr. Cooper was striking the passionate chords of the opening of the “Marseillaise.” Everyone present did not know what anthem this was; but when the more highly educated remained on their feet, the others did the same and joined in the cheers at the close. Of course no attempt was made to sing the “Marseillaise.” But before the month was out everyone in England was able at least to “ tum-tum turn turn turn tummy-turn—Tummy-tum turn turn tummy-tum,” the opening phrases.

When the excitement incidental to these surprises had somewhat abated and the audience, now seated, were studying their programmes, there was a brief conference on the platform between Mrs. Morrison and Mr. Cooper, and the lady came to the front:

“ Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “ the programmes were printed a few days ago; but it has been thought advisable to make a few changes. In place of the selections by German composers, pieces by English musicians will be performed.” (Loud and prolonged cheers.) “ Instead of Weber’s Mazurka Mr. Cooper has kindly consented to play ‘ Land of Hope and Glory,’and Mr. Vibart will substitute ’ Tom Bowling’ for ‘ Adelaida,’ and Miss Hetherington ’ The Lost Chord ’ for Gluck’s ’ Che farb.’ I am sure that these changes will meet with the approval of everyone present.”

The announcement was greeted with the most enthusiastic cheers ever heard in the same building. People had not begun to talk of “ doing their bit,” but they had begun to appreciate the sentiment. Churlington felt that it had shown an example to England, and what Churlington felt that day all England would feel the next. Only the Vicar, who was a generous man and a student of the violoncello, had an impression that Gluck was being hardly dealt with. Poor old Gluck! He had been dead for such a long time, it seemed a little hard to treat him as if he were as flagrantly Teutonic as Strauss. Surely there was a sort of statute of limitations in art. Did not time naturalize a great composer? Did a great composer belong to any country? Who would venture to think of Handel except as an Englishman? The Vicar was, however, wise enough to keep his impressions to himself.

He was wise; for there was clearly a feeling that the censorship, so far from being over-rigorous, did not go far enough. There still remained upon the programme a selection from the Henry VIII. Lyceum music, opposite to which was the name Edward German.

“ What about German? ” came a bold voice, when the cheering had subsided. “ What is German doing on the programme? ” The voice was a shrill soprano, and it was greeted by several “ Hear-hears! ”

Mrs. Morrison looked quickly at her programme, consulted with Mr. Cooper, who was smiling, and then said:

“ I understand that Edward German is an English composer.”

“ No, no; don’t tell us that. No German can be an Englishman.”

There could be no doubt that this ethnological truth found ready acceptance with a large section of the audience.

“ No German to-night—no German in any shape or form! ” were the protests uttered in many directions. The protestants were determined to “ do their bit.”

The Vicar rose, and held up his hand.

“ One minute,” he said. “

I am prepared to vouch for the nationality of the composer—Mr. Edward German is an Englishman, in spite of his unfortunate name.”

There was an immediate silence in the Herbert Memorial School-house. The Vicar could be depended on even by Nonconformists. But Miss Allen, the forward person who had made the protest, whispered to her mother, who sat beside her, in tones loud enough to be heard within a radius of ten seats:

“ If that is a quibble I will expose it, were he twenty times the Vicar.”

“ Order! order! ” cried Colonel Colvin, in his field-day voice. He had rarely to make a demand upon his field-day voice since his retirement from the Corps; but it came to him quite naturally, with the luminosity of the headlines in the morning papers still in the air. And having given his word of command, the sound of it had the effect of a bugle call upon him. He felt that though technically sixty-one, and inclined to put on weight, he was as hale as most men of forty. He made up his mind on the spot to offer his services to the War Office in any capacity the next day.

And then the audience settled down to the enjoyment of a programme from which every unpatriotic suggestion had been eliminated—they accepted the brilliant Henry VIII. dances unreservedly on the guarantee of the Vicar. If the Vicar stood sponsor for Edward German, who would dare to object?

No one except Miss Allen, of course. But Miss Allen subscribed to Votes jor Women.

CHAPTER II

THAT part of the concert for which the audience had been waiting for nearly two hours—for which, as a matter of fact, they had come together— namely, the end, had come at last. The National Anthem had been sung at the beginning, and in full into the bargain, and some people were wondering what would happen at the end: it would be rather weak, though there can be no such thing as a superfluity of loyalty, if the management should be forced into repeating it. So thought the critical minority. But they had not counted upon the patriotic resources of Mrs. Morrison, augmented by the research of Mr. Cooper, the organist. They had actually treated with negligence the true British anthem, “ Rule, Britannia! ” But when Mr. Cooper struck the first notes on the piano they knew that this was what they wanted. Mr. Cooper knew it, too. He had been artful enough— perhaps artistic enough—to give his choir a run through the unfamiliar words early in the afternoon, imploring them to sing “ Britannia rule the waves,” not “ Britannia rules the waves,” in the chorus, but when it came to the moment of execution they all forgot his counsel and, with the people in the school-house, gave the more familiar and ungrammatical version of the charter of the land.

And while Commander Larwell was practically taking the salute on behalf of the Navy, Mr. Cooper, by way of keeping up appearances, and satisfying everybody, dashed off “

God save the King,” and rose from his seat before anyone could make an attempt to sing a single bar.

And this was what everybody had waited for—the opportunity to discuss the awful news. Mrs. Morrison’s revised anticipations were more than justified. No one had ever thought of an August concert being a great success, and it was only by the most strenuous exertions that she had managed to sell even a moderate number of tickets. But, on recovering from her early despondency when the headlines had, as it were, risen up and smitten her on the face, she had felt sure—knowing the people of Churlington very well indeed—that her concert would give everyone an opportunity of discussing the news such as few could hope to have offered to them at so early a stage. She had felt confident that everyone in the neighbourhood would share her own eagerness to meet everybody else as soon as possible in order to declare that no more appalling news had ever appeared in a newspaper.

And she had undoubtedly scored a great success. She had seen with proper pride the crowd around the school-house long before the doors were opened, and she had become aware of the electrical atmosphere of the interior, so highly charged with patriotism, before a note had been struck, and she knew that, in spite of the warmth of the night, the excitement of the occasion and the burning desire of everyone to meet everyone else at the close would prevent anyone from feeling bored by the efforts of the well-meaning amateurs whose names were on the programme. Everyone would be ready to tolerate any amateurs—nay, to feel grateful to them as well, for the chance they offered everyone to tell everyone else that war was an awful thing, but that the Kaiser was really the limit.

And so Mrs. Morrison was smiling blandly at the reflection that she had successfully brought about her end—the end to which all the audience had been looking forward—the end of the concert.

The Herbert Memorial School-house had become the common hall of a club for the elite of Churlington and the neighbourhood. Only the ordinary people—music-lovers and the like—had left the building; all the rest of the audience, including those whose motors were waiting outside, remained; and a considerable number had not even vacated their seats. Mrs. Morrison had done things handsomely; she had provided light refreshments for all who thought they had need to be refreshed—sandwiches assorlis, cakes, and two brands of lemonade. Cigarettes were giving to the atmosphere the usual impression of masculine femininity which they are designed to create. People were talking wildly, but not very wildly. They were too dazed for the present to be able to take a dispassionate view of an incident that made so direct an appeal to the passions as did the full-page headlines of the newspapers. That little roomful of English people was typical of the whole Empire at that moment. They were drawing their breath. Britain was drawing her breath—Britain across the oceans, the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Indian Oceans— drawing her breath—too dazed for the moment to be capable of understanding, except in a vague way, what had happened, or of estimating what it meant; but that breath was taken only to ask the passionate question, “ What can I do—tell me, and I shall do it.” That was what everyone who spoke the English tongue was saying the next day; one day more, and everyone was doing it.

But now the groups in Churlington School-house were talking under the influence of the daze—the daze of an excess of patriotic devotion that was almost benumbing—talking wildly, widely, fantastically, ridiculously, platitudinally.

Whatever people might say, war was a fearful thing —the most awful calamity that could be imagined— and such a war!—Why on earth did we allow Germany to go on building such a fleet? Surely anyone should have known what it meant!—the Kaiser—the Junkers in Berlin.—And after all the kindness that had been shown to him in England 1—an Admiral in the British Navy I—Hadn’t everyone seen his portrait in the uniform of an admiral, with a telescope under his arm just like a real admiral!—Judas!—And didn’t he come over and stay with Lord Lonsdale?—Was it true that Lord Haldane had visited him in Potsdam?—What, and Lord Haldane Minister for War at the time !—But that shows the folly of the whole Government!—A man says, “ I’ll go to the War Office,” he goes, and nobody tries to stop him; and when he gets there he plays fast and loose with everything—costs the country millions and millions—doing away with the Volunteers, when everybody knows they did splendidly in South Africa.—And what about those German caps that were ordered for the whole British Army and even for the Royal Irish Constabulary?—Oh, that was Arnold Forster, was it? Anyhow, it was the thin end of the wedge and cost the country millions—Germanizing the British Army! And then he gets tired of his job at the War Office, and says, “ I want to be Lord Chancellor! ” Was there ever such a farce?—As if the qualifications for a War Minister were the same as those that constituted an ideal Lord Chancellor!—What a farce !—like going to consult a solicitor instead of a vet if you wanted to buy a sound horse!—And what about Winston Churchill? —Well, no matter what one may think of Winston Churchill, the whole Fleet is mobilized.—Of course Charlie Beresford will be brought back—Beresford is the man for England just now.—And Kitchener—is it possible that they have been slack enough to let him return to Egypt?—Was it not in yesterday’s paper that he had crossed from Dover on the way to Marseilles?— Kitchener must be brought back—but he’s a queer chap and mightn’t choose to come.—And what about Roberts—the Government may have to fall back on Roberts after all—-and wasn’t he right in the way he has been urging his National Service on everyone in spite of the discouragement of the Government?— Oh, of course, we always find out these things when it’s too late—but Germany must be beaten, and beaten she shall be if it should cost a thousand millions to do it. . . .

So they talked—wildly and vaguely and truly, their tongues tramping to the march set by the headlines of the morning papers. The daze of the awful war was over all. To-morrow they would all be asking what they should do, and the day after they would be doing it, whether fighting or nursing or collecting funds. The daze would only last twenty-four hours.

It was nearly midnight before they got into the open air and beneath the soft splendour of the million stars of the exquisite summer night.

“ What stars! I had no idea there were so many so far on in the summer,” cried Mrs. Morrison in a voice of natural surprise, though her remark made several people about her laugh. They were indifferent students of psychology, and incapable of appreciating the suggestion of an excitement that seeks relief in the inane.

“ That is exactly the impression I had when I got out of the lamplight of the porch,” said the Vicar. “ Such myriads of stars—even the smallest of them the centre of a universe of many worlds, and even the smallest of these worlds perhaps greater than all the space occupied by our whole Solar System; and yet here we are passionately excited because one man is trying to terrorize Europe, and you could put all the people in Europe into the Isle of Wight without making them feel uncomfortable.”

“ I accept the accuracy of your superfices, but I doubt that of your conclusion,” said Colonel Colvin, “ ‘ Without making them feel uncomfortable ’? What, throw the Prussians and the French together and say they will not feel uncomfortable? Oh, no.”

“ I hope the French will make those wretches feel more uncomfortable before another week is over than they have ever felt in all their lives,” cried Mrs. Clifford fervently, turning about when in the act of entering her motor.

“ You bet they will, too,” said young Bastowe.

“ And so say all of us,” cried Freddy Colvin.

“ What was on my mind when I spoke,” said the Vicar mildly, “ was simply how utterly insignificant even the German Emperor and his armies are compared with the Power above the stars.”

“ The German Emperor wouldn’t agree with you,” said Mark Rowland, taking off his hat to the group as he hurried away in the direction of his home, and also of Halliwell Moat, which was the home of Angela Inman. Angela Inman was walking on with General Drawbridge, but they did not walk over-fast—he knew that Angela would see to that.

And she had seen to it.

He overtook her and her escort easily within the first hundred yards.

“ I have seen it coming for a long time,” the General was assuring Angela. “ I really thought that when we got into that Cape trouble he would come down on us, for you must remember that the agreement between France, Russia, and England—the entente, as they call it—had not been entered into at that time. That’s what I was afraid of—all our men on the high seas—fighting for their lives in the Transvaal—surely that was an opportunity not to be missed, I thought. But he let it go by—for some reason or other, he let it go by. Maybe he was afraid of France—there was an understanding between France and Russia—that may have been it. Anyhow, he let it go by.”

“ It occurred to me that he was thinking of the future of the Hohenzollerns,” said Mark. “ He was thinking of the campaign of 1870 when glory was achieved by William and his Crown Prince; he was looking to make the future of his family certain. His Crown Prince was not old enough to take the command of one of the armies fifteen years ago, so his father had to stay his hand until he should grow up.”

“ There may be something in that view,” said General Drawbridge. “

The Emperor of the French, egged on by his wife, tried to make his son the idol of the nation by that baptism of fire bluff, but he failed, and so will this swaggerer of Potsdam fail for all his swagger. Mark my words, this war that he has forced upon us will end in the break-up of the Hohenzollern fraud. Lord! what would I not give to be allowed to have a hand in that smash up? Cruel! to condemn a man to inaction because he is nominally sixty-five! ”

“ Surely you are not even nominally sixty-five, General,” said Angela tactfully.

“ I’m sorry to say that as years go I am sixty-five,”replied the General. “ But what’s that? Was there ever so arbitrary a way of counting as by years? Thank God, I’m as sound to-day at sixty-five as I was twenty-five years ago, when I was forty.”

Angela had heard Colonel Colvin make the same boast earlier in the night—only he said sixty-one; she had also heard her mother’s gardener, an exsergeant of Dragoons, declare in the morning that he was as good at fifty-three as he had been at thirty-three. The sergeant was cautious, however: he knew that there is no great market for gardeners of sixty (his actual age), but the principle of his protest he considered irreproachable.

“ My father rode to hounds when he was nearly seventy,” said she.

“ Dozens of men of eighty are in the saddle to-day,” said the General, “ ay, and not far behind when there’s any stiff work to be got through. I’m as fit for a job of work now as I ever was, and yet I have no hope that the War Office will even reply to the application for employment in any capacity which I sent them to-day.”

“ Why shouldn’t they reply to you? ” cried Angela. “ I think it was simply splendid of you, General. Don’t you, Mark? ”

“ It is what everyone who knows General Drawbridge expected,” replied Mark.

“It is what a score of my old comrades did yesterday, I am as certain as that I stand on this spot,” said the General, “ as certain as that no acknowledgment will come to us from the War Office. The War Office thinks of nothing beyond days and years. When a man retires in the prime of life they assume that he is done for. However, one must only grin and bear it. But it’s hard that we should be left here to eat our hearts out. Maybe the War Office is not so greatly to blame after all. They must be pestered with applications. Why, someone was telling me that Colvin had actually telegraphed to Listowel, whose brigade-major he was in the early days at the Cape, offering himself. Poor old Colvin! as good a chap as ever wore spurs, but I don’t quite see what he could be, what place could be kept for him in the business that we have contracted for to-day.”

Angela, with her recollections of the veterans who had confided their aspirations to her ears during the day, had no temptation to smile just now. The asseverations of the healthy old men seemed to her infinitely pathetic.

“ Well, never mind, my dear. I’ve no doubt that the job will be carried through, even though I’m out of it, and can only look on from a safe distance,” resumed the General. “ What a night! Lord! to think of a war of nations on such a night and in such a place as this seems a desecration! At this very moment the most stupendous doings in the history of the world may be taking place. Perhaps they have already taken place. Germany is capable of any underhand trick. I know that she is depending on the strategical scheme of the ‘ fist in fust.’ She will try to get her ‘ fist in fust,’ and may hope to strike at our fleet, as the Japanese did at the Russian within a few hours of the outbreak of the war. I hope our fleet can be trusted to keep a weather eye open to-night in particular.”

“ They would never be mad enough to think of landing men on our shores at the start,” said Angela.

“ I don’t know what they mightn’t try,” replied the old officer. “ That contemptible Kaiser is mad with vanity. He thinks himself Alexander the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte rolled into one. Lord! Don’t I remember my grandfather telling story after story of the preparations that were made in this very neighbourhood to meet the invasion of Boney a hundred years ago! And to think that here we are to-night talking about the possibility of such an invasion. Ten years ago people would have thought you mad if you had suggested such a thing.”

“ I have an old print showing Bonaparte’s scheme —the enormous rafts that were to be towed across the Channel,” said Mark. “ They look funny to-day; but a good many people in those days believed that the thing could be done.”

“ And I believe that, with luck, it could have been done,” said the General.

“ But in sea matters, luck has generally been on the side of England since the time of the Armada,” said Mark.

“ Luck and seamanship—the most powerful ship in any fleet is seamanship,” said the General. “ I like that glimpse of the sea that we get from Plassingham Knoll. Somehow when I stand there and look out on the Channel I have a sense of security. There it is, England’s moat that no enemy has yet crossed! Nonsense to talk of a silver streak, silver indeed 1 —not silver but steel—finely tempered steel, that’s what it is; and surrounded by that band of steel, we feel as secure as the men of old did when they were wearing a suit of armour. England’s armour belt that no bolt can pierce—that’s our protection. Come along and have a look at it now; it will do us all good. I know that I shall not get a wink of sleep to-night, so I may as well keep my clothes on. What do you say, Rowland? Are you ready for a lark—I know that Miss Inman is? ”

“ Oh, my dear General, it is past midnight,” cried Angela, but in a half-hearted way, the tone of which General Drawbridge was quick to detect.

“ That’s the soul of a lark,” he cried. “ The chimes at midnight! Ah, I know you, my good woman; you are dying for the enterprise—daring is in the air to-night. You have a latchkey in your pocket. Your mother has been in bed and asleep a good three hours ago. Come along now and defy the world— you will feel ready to defy the whole world, and Germany into the bargain, when you stand on the Knoll with the heaven of stars above you and that circle of bright steel in front of you. If Rowland refuses to come, you and I will go together. On the whole, I think that Rowland should go home to bed.”

“ If you are really in earnest in thinking that I should, I shall certainly—go to the Knoll,” cried Mark. “ The soul of a lark is in that word ‘ shouldn’t.’ ”

CHAPTER III

THEY were doing it for the General—so each of them was ready to affirm. They perceived without trouble the condition to which he had been brought by brooding over the thought that he who had been a man of war from his youth—he who had had no interest in life outside the range of warfare— he who felt himself to be as competent as he had ever been to take his share in a campaign, should be forced to stand out of the ranks when the greatest war ever known in the history of the world was being carried on.

They knew how deeply he was feeling it all, from the sadness of his complaint, but more definitely from the fact that he had gone to that trumpery concert. He had hitherto always managed to evade Mrs. Morrison’s concerts, so that most people had been surprised to find him giving (apparently) a vast amount of attention to every item on the programme, and applauding quite vigorously even the least applaudable units. But Angela fancied that she could account for his attitude this evening. She fancied that she knew what his reflections must be, and that he had fled to the concert as some men fly to the flowing bowl as a distraction from a great gloom. If he had not been eating his heart out at home, he would certainly not have come to the school-house, Angela was sure; and it was her appreciation of his feelings that caused her to beg of him to be her escort home, although she had previously agreed with Mark Rowland that they should go away together. That showed that she appreciated the character of Mark Rowland as fully as she did the character of General Drawbridge. She had confidence that Mark would understand her motive and so would not feel that he had been slighted. Perhaps he might be inclined to feel a little disappointed at first—perhaps, she hoped that he would—she certainly would have felt a little disappointed if he had been indifferent to the transaction; but although she had a notion that he had been looking forward to this walk by her side under the canopy of a starlit sky, she was assured that he would perceive all that she perceived, and agree with her judgment. If there was not that perfect accord between Mark and herself it would be better for them both to refrain from taking midnight walks beneath a star-spangled canopy together.

She was a young woman who had ample confidence in her own judgment, and if she had not been quite certain that Mark Rowland shared this confidence, she would never have promised to marry him. She was well aware that people were in the habit of saying that she was a girl whose head was screwed on all right, and she was more inclined to agree with them than with the few who suggested that sometimes she was a little too confident in the accuracy of her judgments.

As a matter of fact, she would have been more universally liked if she had been more frequently astray; and that is only another way of saying that she would have been accounted more womanly. Stern accuracy of judgment is not esteemed as a womanly trait by men. It is not that men regard it as an exclusively masculine trait; it is simply that men know perfectly well that, if it became more universal in women, men would have a poor chance with them. Men know that there’s no use wooing a woman who can see through them. They know that the flexible feminine judgment is their best friend; so they call it womanliness and love it, as well they may.

But Angela Inman since her school-days had been placed in such a position as made it necessary for her to judge quickly and accurately. Her father had died when she was seventeen and her mother had been an invalid since she was eighteen. On the shoulders of Angela fell the cares of the household and the management of a property of an inelastic type. If she had not had her head screwed on properly, there would have been an occasional deficiency in the receipts for the year. She and her mother and her mother’s two maiden sisters and their worthless brother managed to live in comfort through the excellence of her management. She was the only one in the family who had a head at all, leaving out of consideration any question of screwing on in the right place; and it was by her dependence upon the promptings of this natural gift that her mother was enabled to winter abroad, that her aunts were in a position to take a leading part in the parochial activities of the most select village in Hampshire, and that her uncle had long ago abandoned every attempt to make a fortune by horse-breeding. It was this uncle who was Strongly of the opinion that it was very unwomanly on the part of a girl to force her judgments upon her elders. He had felt so strongly on this point that he had magnanimously offered to undertake the management of the property and to distribute the income on a scale that his experience of dealing with other people’s money might dictate; and he was greatly offended—until next quarter day—when Angela vetoed a proposal which was made at her mother’s bedside on Angela’s twenty-first birthday. He had called her unladylike, but she had borne up very well against the weight of his decision on this point. A few months later, she had refused to stand between him and a County Court judgment for the price of a hunter. That was the year he gave up hunting.

But with people who were sane enough to sympathize with any young woman who had given evidence of the possession of brains as well as beauty, Angela was a favourite. General Drawbridge loved to talk to her by the hour, and even the Vicar’s wife showed herself ready to consult with her on the subject of stencil designs. If you had asked Mark Rowland whether he had fallen in love with her on account of her reputation as a thinker, or by reason of the charm of her figure and features, he would, of course, have replied that he had fallen in love with her because she was herself. But true lovers do not rack their brains for an explanation of their loving. Anything will serve as an excuse—even good looks; and Mark Rowland felt that he had never loved her better than when she had shown her appreciation of the mood of the old General, who had heard the trumpet call, but was told that it was not for him—that he must fall out of the ranks. What a chance she had given the man of asserting himself—of showing himself ready for a midnight lark with the best of these young ’uns who were so ready to shoulder him aside. The General was ready to take her hand and race up the road— he had actually caught her hand with this intent. Mark thought it all very pathetic.

“ Come along, my dear, we’ll show a clean pair of heels to that laggard beside you,” cried the General in a voice as springy as his feet—perhaps even more so. “ I’ll bet you an anna that he’ll not catch us till we are at the top of the Knoll for all his boasted youth! ”

Angela’s laugh rang out through the soft silence of the starlit night: surely, the morning stars had laughed together like this when such a girl was born, thought Mark, making no effort to follow the two who had raced hand-in-hand under the chestnuts of the gradually rising road; he knew that after the first sprint of a hundred yards, one at least of the pair would begin to breathe quickly. Mark had found out lately that running did not suit him. For some reason or other, it seemed to give him a strain. He had not kept himself so fit as he should have done since his return from India. He did not believe that he could have overtaken his Atalanta and her companion if he had tried.

But he knew that he would not be called on to make such a trial; so he did not quicken his pace. They would be pleased—though they might not confess it —to be given the chance of a breathing space while he was coming up to them.

Still they managed to get nearly two hundred yards ahead of him. He could hear more than a suspicion of a grampus blowing there and not at the seaward side of the Knoll.

It was not—for obvious reasons—the General who sang out:

“ Any message for the Knoll? I suppose we shall meet you when we are coming back.”

“ Come on—you dawdler! ” called the General between breathings—if he had needed one more word he would have been forced to carry it over to the next.

“ The idea of hurrying on such a night as this! ”said Mark, joining them in leisurely fashion. “ Why, it’s an outrage! What sound do I hear? Oh, I suppose it must be that we are alongside Leyton paddock: Harford hasn’t a horse that isn’t a roarer. Charming view from this spot in the daytime—not quite so striking just at this moment, is it? Have you any reason for pausing to admire it? ”

The General was recovering quickly; but still he let Angela do all the talking for the next few minutes; she was in very good training; the few gasps that she gave only added to the charm of her presence. The rose-pink bow of her wrap was deliciously agitated. Mark felt her pulse as he drew her arm within his.

“ How refreshing after the stuffy air of that school-house! ” said she. “ You should have cleared your lungs, Mark. The General is twice the man that you are.”

“ And Colvin is four times the man that I am,” laughed Mark. ” They say that he burst his Sam Browne trying to get it round him yesterday.”

“ You don’t happen to know anyone who wants a secondhand Sam Browne, do you, Rowland? ” said the General as they started again. “ If you come across anyone, just send him on to me. I have one to dispose of cheap.”

“ But what will you do for one? ” cried Angela; and Mark squeezed her arm lovingly.

“ What will I do for one? Lord! What would I do with one? ” said the General. “ I’ve no use for a Sam Browne, and my country has no use for me.

Sound the Last Post over poor old Drawbridge! He’s gone at last! Well, he had a pretty fair innings, all things considered. Eleven medals and a C.B.”

“ Look here, General, I’ll lay you three sovereigns to one that you are employed within three months,” cried Mark; and this time it was his arm that was squeezed lovingly by the hand that lay upon it.

“ I’ll take you up, and if I have to pay you, by the Lord Harry I’ll do it with a heart and a half! ” shouted the General. “ If they only set me on to cut up the carrots for the kitchen, I’ll do it with all my heart; but I must do something.”

“ ’ Back to the Army again, General, back to the Army again,’ ” laughed Angela. “ Pare the carrots, General, and I’ll promise to cook them for the stew or give them raw to the horses.”

“ I’ll keep you up to your work, never fear,” said the General. Then he turned to Mark.

“ What about yourself, Rowland? ” he asked. “ You were in the Yeomanry, weren’t you? How was it that you resigned? ”

“ It was when I went to India, four years ago,” replied Mark. “ I didn’t think that I would be returning for another ten years, and I didn’t want to stand in the way of some other chaps who wished to get on in the regiment.”

“ You should have rejoined when you came back.”

“ I meant to if they would have had me, even though I don’t care much for Greatorex, who is in command,” said Mark.

“ Nobody seems to care much for Greatorex,” said the General. “ But doesn’t that give you a better chance, of getting to the front quickly? The Yeomanry will be kept at home for some time at least.”

“ And you think that they would give me a commission on the strength of my Captaincy in the Yeomanry? Oh, hang a commission I Would they give me one stripe if I were to enlist? ”

“ Hear him talk! ” muttered the old officer. “ Take it from me, if they get Kitchener in time, he’ll send an army to France inside a fortnight, and there’ll be a million men drilling inside a month, all crying out for officers.”

“ I always thought that it was understood we should never send an army across the Channel,” said Mark. “ It was on the Fleet we were to depend—that was what was said—the Army only in case of invasion.”

“ Radical newspapers, my boy! Trust to Kitchener —Roberts to back him up—I don’t care if a lawyer is at the War Office—Kitchener and Roberts will keep him up to the mark. When the time comes an English army will be ferried across within the month.”

“ And you will be in it,” said Angela in a low voice to Mark. There was no note of pride in her voice, nor was there a note of apprehension. She was only giving utterance to what had been her thought since she had opened the newspaper in the morning.

“ Yes,” said Mark, “ I suppose I shall be in it.”

And he, too, spoke as casually as if he were merely agreeing to have tea on the lawn after a set of tennis.

They walked on in silence for some time, up the gently sloping lane, at the head of which was a natural mound bearing a coronet of trees. A great cleavage in the Downs was seen at its widest from here, giving a splendid glimpse of the Channel, east and west of the spread of the cliffs of the Combe. Further inland, the Downs ascended to a long, clear-cut ridge with the patchwork fields of many a farm laid out as far as Wilmshurst Beacon: the intervening space held the village of Venning with its cloud of woodland, out of which the shingled spire of the little church rose like a pointed rock in a dark sea, and almost at the foot of the Knoll, the square town of Staunton.

It was a stiff climb to the summit of the Knoll, and Mark, as well as General Drawbridge, found it quite easy to be reticent in regard to their admiration of the starlit glimpses of gracious landscape that they had on their way.

“ Ha! ” shouted the General, pointing to the distant sea when they came to a halt. “ Ha! ”

“ Ho! ” acquiesced Mark.

“ An armoured belt indeed,” said Angela, who was more capable of speech than either of the men. “ Look at it—grey shining armour! ”

“ For heaven’s sake, not that phrase,” said Mark by instalments. “ On such a night as this the Teuton operatic tenor in tinsel sounds like a tinkling cymbal. The manikin with the mailed fist who has come to think of himself as a Sigurd with the mission of a Parsifal is of no account to-night; his strut is not across a natural English landscape like this.”

“ That is no operatic armour, my boy,” cried the General, pointing, quite after the best manner of the basso profundo of an opera by Giuseppe Verdi, toward the steel-grey sheet of sea in the distance. “ That is England’s armoured belt. They knew nothing of armoured belts in the days of old Boney that I was talking about, when my grandfather and his men were accustomed to rendezvous at the very place where we are standing to-night, waiting for the signal from that sea over there—the signal they were to pass on to Wilmshurst Beacon which, in its turn, was to rouse the men at Shelley Head, and so on until all the South Coast should spring into a blaze and all England be ready to meet the invader. Lord! to think that after a hundred years, passed without more than a hint of invasion, we should stand in the same place to-night, asking ourselves if it could be possible for an enemy’s ship to get within shot of our shores! ”

“ And what would be your answer to that question? asked Mark.

“ Thank the Lord, William the Little is not Napoleon the Great,” replied the General. “ If Boney failed, William is not likely to succeed. But I give you my word that I would not feel surprised in the least if the fellow were to make a dash for England in imitation of the Japanese on the Russians that I spoke of a few minutes ago. He would dearly like to get his fist in fust—”

“ His mailed fist,” suggested Angela.

“ Mailboat fist—he is the sort of swaggerer that would believe himself Admiral of the Seven Seas, if he succeeded in sinking a mailboat,” said Mark.

“ I seem to have been living in a dream since I read the morning papers,” said Angela. “ The idea of an enemy landing on the coast down there seems too fantastic to be grasped; and now I feel as if I were merely trying to recall the stories of the terror created by the menace of Napoleon. I seem only to be trying to recall the incidents of the threatened invasion, and the constant false alarms that were being given. I heard that Wilmshurst Beacon was fired one night and the whole defensive force of the coast turned out en masse because someone had seen a line of fishing boats becalmed in the moonlight and took it for a flotilla.”

“ The Beacon is still there, but it will never be lighted again,” said the General. “ Still, I am glad that Sir George keeps up the old custom of renewing the fuel every summer. It gives one an impression of confidence—of readiness, even though—eh, what’s that?—Lord! what a fool I am! Looking across the country there and talking about the firing of the Beacon, I’m hanged if I didn’t fancy for a moment that—that—I say, Rowland, tell me if I’m quite a blithering fool or what—turn your eyes in the direction of the Beacon—what do you see? ”

“ It’s alight! ” cried Angela. “Wilmshurst Beacon is lit. You are right, General: the Germans are making a dash for the coast! ”

The three stood there on the high Knoll looking over the hollow basin of the landscape toward the Beacon, and saw slowly rising from the spur of land, a mile and a half distant from them, a tall flame, springing upward on this calm night, in the shape of an English yew of many branches, tapering to the top. As they watched, it increased in volume, and the stars were blotted out of the heaven by the dense smoke that rolled upward, while great gleams of lurid light shot over the landscape, bringing out several objects in their sweep that had previously been invisible.

“ What does it mean? ” said Angela, when they had gazed across the hollow that lay between the Knoll and the Beacon.

“ The Lord knows,” replied the General. “ The idea of a Beacon in these days of telephones, to say nothing of wireless! What do you make of it, Rowland? ”

“ Who knows? Perhaps, after all, the firing of the Beacon may mean that the Germans are trying on the Japanese dodge, and have come down on our Fleet in the Channel.”

“ That’s too much to fancy, but we can always hope for the best,” said the General.

“ And what would be the best? ” asked Angela.

“ An attack in force by the Germans,” replied the General.

“ And what would that mean? ” said she.

“ It would mean that the English Channel would be rendered unsafe for navigation for an hour or two— especially when the navigators are Germans,” said he.

CHAPTER IV

I WOULDN’T have missed this for any sum of money! ” cried General Drawbridge. “ Talk of larks! ”

“ Hadn’t we better try to do something? ” said Angela. “ I suppose if the Beacon means anything, it means that people are to do something.”

“ What can we do, except try to prevent a panic? ” said Mark. “ Even if it is only an idiotic jest on the part of someone, it may produce a panic, and anything is better than that. Which way are we to go—to the Coastguard Station at Shelley Head, or to the Police Station at Staunton? ”

“ Listen for a moment—do you hear the sound of heavy guns? ” asked the General.

They held their breath. Mark held Angela’s hand, as if that would enable him to hear the better.

The stillness of the night was made audible by the barking of two dogs, evidently in the extreme distance of a farm, and the purring of a motor-car on some unseen road. Angela said that she could hear the sound of people shouting.

“ If there are no guns, we needn’t go toward the coast,” said the General. “ There is no raid going on within a radius of twenty miles, and we can’t hold ourselves responsible for anything outside that. By the Lord Harry, we’re making a night of it! Ha! that’s Venning church clock striking one. Well, we may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. It’s a good mile and a half to the Beacon, but we can face it, I think.”

They hurried down to the lane with its overhanging chestnuts and on to the road that went to the foot of the lofty spur of Wilmshurst Beacon. They were going down a good deal faster than they had gone up to the Knoll, but before they had made much progress, Mark was having it impressed on him more forcibly than ever that he had been very slack since his return from India. He had certainly not kept himself in condition, or why should he feel it an exertion to walk at only a little faster pace than ordinary along a road with only a slight upward gradient?

He made up his mind to start getting into condition the very next day. He would look a pretty slacker if he got his commission and began to feel tired the first time he had marched a couple of miles with his company.

Why, the superannuated General beside him was a better man than he; for the General had got his second wind and was doing most of the talking without a single gasp.

Yes, it was that new motor that had demoralized him. He had heard someone say that, with the spread of the motor, in the course of half a century walking would be a lost art. He could easily believe that that should be so.

And while this was passing through his mind, the sound of a motor-cycle came increasing on the road behind them, and when they stood to one side, the headlight of the machine flashed along the way, and the General hailed the cyclist, who almost overtook the flash of his own lamp.

He pulled up, and revealed himself as one Derek Cross, son of a land-agent at Churlington.

“ What has happened? Have you seen the Beacon? They say that the Germans have landed below Shelley Head,” he cried.

“ We know nothing,” said the General. “We have not been nearer the Beacon than we are now. What rot is that about the Germans having landed? ”

“ I don’t know,” said the youth. “ It was only some people at Churlington before I started. I’m on my way to find out what it means. They wouldn’t fire the Beacon without some reason, would they, sir? ”

“ Lord knows! ” said the General. “ But you may take my word for it, the Germans haven’t landed. Are you armed? ”

The boy, who was caressing his handle-bar and looking in the direction of the flame in the distance, became at once alert.

“ Armed? Rather! ” said he, and he proudly showed the handle of a revolver above the flap of the pocket of his jacket.

“ You’re all right, at any rate, whether the Germans have landed or not,” said the General. “ Off you go and see that you don’t get into mischief; it’s very late to be out.”

“ I think I can hold my own, sir,” said the youth modestly. “ I’ll be off and maybe meet you when I’m coming back. I’ll let you know if there’s any danger.”

“ Heaven will reward you,” said the General.

The boy set his machine coughing, and flinging himself on the saddle, went off in a flash.

A little further on the road the others overtook some half-dressed people who had crept out of their entrance-gates to learn what was meant, but fearing the worst. The General was able to reassure them; and in another ten minutes they were passed by two motor-cars and a cycle, all driving furiously. Then out of a by-way leading to a hamlet, came an elderly clergyman on a tricycle, foot-driven.

“ We are indeed back to the days of the Napoleonic invasion,” muttered the General.

They did not delay in order to keep pace with this machine, and in another five minutes they found themselves in the midst of a crowd of at least twenty people, most of whom were laughing, but more than one with a suspicion of hysteria, the result of a sudden reaction from a great apprehension.

General Drawbridge and his companions were acquainted with many of the crowd. Dr. Charwood was nearest to them when they arrived. He laughed when the General spoke to him; but then turned quickly half way round and looked at Mark, as if Mark had addressed him. He seemed a little startled: but recovering himself in a moment, he said:

“ Hallo, Rowland! who would have expected to see you here at this hour? ”

“ Why not me as well as the others? ” said Mark. “ Why shouldn’t the Beacon make its appeal to me as well as to the rest? ”

“ Why should it not, indeed? ” said the Doctor. “ Only it so happens that the appeal did not come from the Beacon at all, but from Farmer Wadham’s big haystack. Go on a little further and you will see for yourselves.”

They did not begin to laugh until they had hastened beyond the screening hedge and had looked up the lane that led to the Wadham Farm at the foot of the Wilmshurst spur of the Downland slope and had seen that the heavy volume of smoke was flowing from the stillsmouldering ruins of what must have been a very large haystack just behind the farm buildings. The Beacon stood intact not more than a hundred feet to the eastward.

And still people kept arriving at the foot of the steep lane on foot, with hastily-made toilets, in motor-cars and on bicycles, and, last of all, the parson on his tricycle flashed up—

“ Just in time to read the burial service over the haystack,” whispered Jennings, the Staunton cobbler, a noted Freethinker.

“ Lord! ” said the General. “ What a disappointment! I thought that something was about to happen. Funny, wasn’t it, that we should have been talking about Boney and the Beacon of a hundred years ago? ”

“ What surprises me is that you should be out of your beds when the fire began less than half an hour ago,” said Dr. Charwood.

Miss Inman glanced at General Drawbridge and Mark, and they all laughed.

“ This is not a Petty Sessions,” said the General; “ but you should have given the usual warning, that anything we say now may be used against us.”

“ Well, the fact is, Doctor Charwood, that we were all at Mrs. Morrison’s concert to-night.”

“ Is that an excuse? There was nothing at that entertainment—I assume the entertainment——”

“ Too hastily, my friend,” said the General. “ You don’t know Mrs. Morrison’s concerts.”

“ I admit that they have not yet been given a place in the Pharmacopoeia,” said the Doctor, “ but I have good reason for believing that so far from tending to wakefulness—hallo, you are still wearing your concert-wrap, Miss Inman! Further equivocation is no use. Confess that you have not been in bed tonight.”

“ You are Dr. Watson, Sherlock Holmes’s pupil, and you have called yourself Dr. Charwood all these years,” said Mark. “ I might have known that you knew we had guessed your secret by the way you started when you saw me.”

“ Did I start? ” asked the Doctor, without the suspicion of a smile. “ Well, I was surprised to—to—to see you here. But if you’ll take my advice, you will get home and into your beds without delay. I have my car, so I can give any two of you a lift.”

“ I’ll be one of the two, if you don’t mind,” said the General.

“ And I’ll be the other,” cried Mark. “ You won’t mind walking, Angela—it really is not more than a mile and three-quarters, if you take the short cut.”

“ I don’t mind,” said she, starting off to walk.

General Drawbridge had got into the car, saying:

“ Settle it in your own way,” and Mark, with a laugh, was about to hasten after Angela, when the Doctor, leaning out to him from the steering-wheel, said:

“ Oh, by the way, Rowland, I wish you would drop in upon me some time to-morrow. I’m pretty sure to be free between two and three.”

“ All right,” said Mark. “ Only you needn’t depend on me for any handicapping for the tournament.”

“ I won’t,” said the Doctor, who was the president of the Handicapping Committee of the Lawn Tennis Club; and Mark hastened after Angela on the road “ What an amusing contretemps,” said she. I shall not soon forget to-night. It has been a night of adventures.”

“ It has made a new man of the General, at any rate,” said Mark. “ He was very low when we left the concert.”

“ I felt for him indeed,” said she. “ Just think of it—doomed to see all the preparations going on, to see the names of the men who were his subalterns in his old regiment, put down for important commands while he is passed over! I hope I did something for him, Mark. You should have heard the way he talked to me before you came up.”

“ I could see how he was feeling it all. I’m sure that a man in such circumstances feels as if he had heard his death sentence; he is no more referred to than if he were already dead.”

“That is just how it struck me. It is as if the father of the family, lying in his coffin, could hear the people around him discussing, like amateurs, some business in which he was deeply interested. How I pity the retired forces—the living dead! ”

“ I’m pretty sure that a good many of them will have their hands full before this war is over. You don’t remember the beginning of the South African business, but I do. Scores of first-class retired forces—that’s a good name you have given them—rushed up to London at the start and sat on the steps of the War Office on the chance of getting the ear of some of the staff—‘ in any capacity ’—that was the phrase which I believe every passer-by could hear when any of the applicants managed to get in touch with a staff officer.

‘ Nothing doing ’ was the invariable reply. The War Office staff felt really scandalized that any half-pay man should have the audacity to apply for anything except his pension. But a month later things were changed, and they were only too glad to hunt up the veterans of fifty and sixty to help to drag them out of their muddles. You may be sure that the General will get something to do. But just now he must feel— well, not just now, for he’s a very different man from the one he was when he left the schoolhouse.”

“ He was not the only one who required cheering up, Mark. You have not said a word yet about yourself. But you know I have been living with that shadow hanging over me all day. I don’t know what you mean to do—that is, as regards the details, but I know that whatever you do, it will mean separating us.”

“ Don’t let us talk about it, my dearest. There’s no use meeting the thing half way. When the time comes will be time enough to—to pull ourselves together and face the inevitable. Let us leap at the throat of the inevitable, not crawl up to it.”

“ I wish I could do it. I wish I could get away from the shadow of that inevitable. Oh, my dear love, is it not dreadful to feel that while I would give everything I possess to keep you with me, I would count as nothing all that I possess if you were to stay with me? ”

“ If you felt differently I should feel that I was not loving you, but quite another girl. Now I’m going to refuse to talk any longer in this strain. If we were to continue we should find ourselves becoming as rhetorical or as operatic as that Emperor of all the swanks, addressing his army as if they were his chorus. ’ Go where glory waits thee.’ ’ Beloved, I go to fight for home and fatherland ’—I hope we shall never come to that in England. I should have felt hurt if you had asked me if I meant to make any move.”

“ I might as well ask you if you really love me, Mark.”

“ I know all that is in your heart, darling.”

“ All—all? Ah, not quite all, my love.”

“ Perhaps not; but I know as much of it as you do —perhaps a little more, my Angela.”

They had been talking in those passionate whispers which sometimes fall short of fluency—even of coherence. But she was clinging to his arm, and when after a long silence they reached the entrance gates to the carriage drive of her home, her hands were clasped behind his neck, while she held his face close to her own. He felt the warm tears that flowed from her eyes upon his cheeks. He knew that she meant them to be the liquid benediction that came from the true Jons lacrymarum—the heart of a girl who loves and trusts.

He did not reach his sister’s house until another hour had passed. The daze which, in common with all England, he had experienced since he had read the morning papers, preventing him from realizing anything of what the war meant, was being gradually dispersed. It was like a desert mist through which war was seen only as a distant mirage; but it was being gradually dispersed, until Angela’s tears had washed the last of it away, and now he felt as if the air had been cleared so that he could see plainly what was before him. At first the announcement of the war had been received by him, as it was by a good many other people in the country, as quite an impersonal incident. It was like the account of an earthquake in Japan, or a railway accident in China. People read of such calamities and shake their heads, but they are not induced by the news to give up living in houses of stone or of brick, or to travel on foot from place to place. Mark Rowland had really not thought of the war touching his life except with the tip of the longest of its antennae. In England war has always been so regarded as the business of a special class of the population, that those who live outside barracks have come to think of it as they do of a strike in the shipbuilding industry, or a shortage in cotton. It is something that immediately concerns the Army, and the Army only. It is so in every country where there is no conscription, and where it has always been understood that the Army and Navy are quite capable of doing their work, so that the great business of the Empire may be carried on without let or hindrance, and that the greater sports of the country may not be impeded in their progress toward perfection. It is understood that the Army and Navy are maintained in order that County Cricket may continue and that the Cup Ties may be punctually contested. If there is any belief that is universally held, it is that it would be a bad day for England if any laxity prevailed in regard to the arrangements for playing off the Cup Ties. The great heart of Old England is stirred to its depths by thoughts of Cup Ties.

Mark Rowland was not indifferent to the fortunes of football, though he preferred thinking about cricket, and such less strenuous forms of living as golf and yachting. He had pencilled in his programme in such matters for the months of August and September—his dates for sport were never more than pencilled in; still he never thought of his arrangements being interfered with by so ridiculous an incident as war; nor even when he had read the news in the morning papers did it occur to him that his way of life would be materially interfered with. As the day went on, however, he moved toward a realization of what England was “up against.” What was it that made him suddenly recollect a perfervid preacher’s treatment of the grave question of Armageddon and the burning end of the world? He had been taken by a zealous nurse to a place of dirty white walls and rafters to hear the great “ Revivalist,” as the man called himself, and he had sat trembling for a full hour beneath the waving arms and the perspiring brows of the spiritual alarmist, and during the next few years of his life he had had many lurid dreams of such abnormal horrors as the missioner had declared to be at hand; but gradually the impression that had been made upon him faded away and for nearly twenty years—he was now thirty—no thought of the appalling struggle of nations which had been prophesied had come to him,

But within an hour of his reading his paper, he had a full recollection of his early impression of Armageddon, and it seemed to him that he had just come from hearing the voice that he had heard cry “ Woe, woe! ” to the inhabitants of the earth.

He felt as dazed as one does when an incident that one has experienced only in dreams, is suddenly realized and one begins to wonder if it is not, after all, only a dream.

He went into the garden and found the head gardener in a state of excitement. He was an elderly man, but he had two young ones under him, and both belonged to the Territorial force, and had been already told that they were to report themselves for service, and the head was wanting to know what he was to do in regard to the chrysanthemums. Then his sister’s chauffeur came upon the scene, to say that he had also seen a notice printed the previous day, calling upon the Reserve men, and he was a Reserve man. He would have to leave in the evening and report himself to his officer.

His sister came into the garden without a hat.

“ What does it all mean? ” she cried. She, too, was dazed.

“ What does what mean? ” he asked.

“ Everything. Cook has a son on the railway—one might have thought that the railway service would not be interfered with; and Cobbett, the parlourmaid, has a friend—she means a fianc6—and both have asked for leave to say ‘ Good-bye.’ ”

“ To say ‘ Good-bye ’? ” he repeated mechanically. “To say ‘ Good-bye ’; the men are to be mobilized with the rest,” said she. “ Mobilized—I thought that that applied only to armies on the Continent. I never heard of the British Army being mobilized. What does it all mean, Mark? ”

“ I wonder,” said Mark. “ I daresay I shall know in the course of the day.”

“ But think of the awful inconvenience of it all! ” she cried, with uplifted hands.

“ A European war must really be more or less inconvenient.”

“ But what is to be done? Tell me that.”

“ Lick the Germans and Austrians—that’s all.”

“ Is this a time for joking, Mark? If you had a house of your own you wouldn’t joke.”

“ I’m pretty sure of it. That’s why I have no house of my own. My dear Cecile, it will take us all a full week to realize what we are up against. Have you ever heard of Armageddon? ”

“ There’s no need to be profane, Mark; Armageddon is some place in the Bible.”

“ It has come out of the Bible and is now some place on the French frontier. There will not be a newspaper in the kingdom that will not try to locate it to-morrow.” “ Is it so bad as that? ”

“ It is the greatest crime ever committed in the world’s history. More than that I can’t say. My God! I’m walking about fancying myself in a dream. It seems impossible that such a thing should be at this time of day.’’

“ I can’t say that I quite look at it in the way that you do. Surely, we can send out as many soldiers as we can spare to fight without making a fuss—interfering with the household—Cook going for the day and then Cobbett! Surely they might have spared a young man on the railway, and she says he was doing so well— in the parcels office, I believe—and the parlourmaid’s young man, too—she is in tears. I suppose I shall have to let both of them go.”

“ I’m afraid there’s nothing else for it. You’ll know more about what this war means within a week.”

And she did.

She spoke in the spirit of the careful housekeeper— a worthy matron who recognizes that her main duty in life is to keep the machinery of a household in perfect running order. There had never been a more successful housekeeper than Lady Barston. She had never shrunk from any domestic crisis, from a cook who is drunk on the afternoon of the day of a dinner-party to the bursting of the water-pipes after a frost and the local plumber laid up with influenza; but she had failed to find any adequate explanation of the catastrophe that the world was facing; and the most sagacious people in the world have not been more successful, though they have had several months to consider it in all its aspects. But before a week had passed her daze had vanished, and with hundreds of thousands of her sisters she was asking what she could do, and doing it before anyone had answered her question.

She apologized for giving her brother a cold lunch; but she had told him what had happened, so that he was prepared even for this hardship. She talked some more nonsense at the table. She had been to the village and had met several of her friends. It was quite absurd, she thought, the number of people who were going off. The men who were not in the Army or the Territorials or the Garrison Artillery were actually talking about enlisting as privates—young men in Mr. Akers’ office—Mr. Akers the land agent—and two in the bank.

“ Do you consider it lucky that you resigned from the Yeomanry when you were going to Ceylon? ” she said to Mark at last. ” If you were still in the regiment you might be called on to serve somewhere. You might really. They say it is very nearly as bad in this way as it was during the Boer War—everybody rushing into the thick of it.”

“ Lucky,” he said. “ Oh, lucky is hardly the word for it.”

“ I suppose it isn’t,” she assented thoughtfully. “ No, I should have said ‘ Providential.’ But you’ll have to go somehow.”

“ I shouldn’t wonder,” said he.

CHAPTER V

OF course what was on his mind when he sat facing his sister at tea a few hours later was that if men were going away to fight he must go with them. He had never had a thought of not going. Since he had come to realize, even in an imperfect way, the work that had to be done—the duty that sent a trumpet summons to some, but that spoke in a still small voice to others—Mark Rowland knew vaguely what was before him. There was no power strong enough, he thought, to keep him at home, when others were marching forth. He did not know if a British Army was to be sent to help France, or if it was taken for granted that the British Fleet was the form that Britain’s help was to assume; but no matter what the intentions of the Government might be, there would certainly be a demand for men, and he should be among those who would offer themselves for whatever had to be done.

His only uncertainty was in respect of the way he was to set about it. His sister had referred to his having resigned from the East Nethershire Yeomanry. Tomorrow she would, he was certain, be |ashamed of the impulse of the moment which had caused her to ask him if he felt himself to be lucky in that respect; but, after all, it was no more than the voicing of such a satisfaction as a woman feels when she learns that the ship in which one of her household had failed to obtain a berth has been lost with all hands. She herself had felt a thrill of satisfaction when the reflection occurred to her that there was now no obligation on his part to subject himself to the inconvenience —nay, the positive danger, of war: he need not mix himself up with the quarrel of those people. That was, he knew, just how she had felt at that moment, because he knew that that was just how the majority of people in England had felt for years past when they heard of wars and rumours of wars between other great nations. They were not troubled. They thanked heaven that there was no conscription in our free land, and went about their business with light hearts.

But Mark Rowland, even by the time that his sister had come out to the garden to tell him how greatly the declaration of war was inconveniencing her and her household—and this was before he had come to realize what war would mean—was conscious of the feeling that he had been a fool to resign from his Yeomanry—that if he had remained in the regiment he would not have that impression of isolation which had somehow come to him, and given him a sense of loneliness. It was as if he had sold for a song his interest in his rubber plantation just before the great rubber boom.

That was just how he was feeling when his sister had come out to him. Everyone about him was having a share in this tremendous event; he alone was out of it. There was the head gardener in despair about his chrysanthemums—his assistant was going to fight, the chauffeur was going to fight, and now it appeared that the cook’s son (where had he heard a song about a cook’s son going to fight by the side of a dook’s son?), and the parlourmaid’s young man were answering to the bugle call that had begun to sound through the length and breadth of the land, sending its echo across all the oceans of the world.

He had a sense of isolation all the time that his sister was murmuring her complaint, and then half suggesting that he was being free from that horrid obligation which devolved upon so many other men.

Somehow the incident of his having resigned from the Yeomanry seemed to make it impossible for him to have anything to do with the war. There was the announcement in the Gazette to prevent his ever riding again at the head of his troop. He knew that a Gazette announcement is something against which there is no appeal. When once a man is “ gazetted ” out of a regiment, he is out of it. He remembered the condition in which he had seen a cousin of his own who had been promised a good civil appointment and, on the strength of this, had been induced to resign his commission in the Army. But the civil appointment had failed him and he had rushed to try if he could cancel his resignation. He was told that if once the announcement was made in the Gazette, there would not be the slightest chance of his having it cancelled. Happily, however, the Gazette had not yet gone to press and he had succeeded, with only the margin of an hour, in saving himself, and had rushed into his club, where Mark was waiting for him, and had dropped into a chair with the perspiration on his forehead. Mark remembered how that incident had given him the impression of the awful finality of the official record—something of the awful book in the Apocalypse.

It was this recollection that oppressed him until after he had lunch; for it took him some hours to find himself, as it were, and to hope that, after all, the door of the War Office might not be slammed in his face, if he were to apply either to be attached once again to his old regiment, or to be permitted to serve as a private in some other. He had not really succeeded in getting in touch with this awful confusing event. “ The most stupendous conflict that has taken place in the world! ” he kept repeating to himself, in his endeavour to appreciate it in some of its bearings. Armageddon—that was the name that he had suggested to his sister for the conflict of all the nations which had been prophesied nearly two thousand years ago and which was now about to begin. The thought that it had formed the subject of prophecy carried with it a feeling of awe; it was a terrible thing to witness the realization of a vision that was bound up with the sacred books and had formed the subject of the interpretation of many wise men for a thousand years and more; but the reflection did not help him to find a footing, so to speak, in relation to it. He began to feel like a prophet himself, standing on a mysterious eminence, watching the marshalling of innumerable forces in a mighty plain beneath his eyes. “ A great multitude that no man might number ”—the impression was overwhelming.

It really was not until he had set out early for that trivial concert and arrived at the schoolhouse porch in time to hear the old officers talk of their applications to the War Office “ in any capacity whatever,” that the stupendous thing definitely assumed a secular form; the conception of it had been gradually growing in his mind into the shape of a Miltonic epic, with the hosts of heaven on one side and the hosts of hell on the other. It had been his nightmare that he was yearning to be on the side of the angels, but someone had shown him that his name was not in the book that entitled him to gratify his laudable aspiration; but the sound of Colonel Colvin’s raucous voice saying:

“ I sent a wire to old Wigton at the War Office— Wigton was always my friend—offering my services in any capacity whatever—any capacity whatever ” —brought him straight away from the mysterious heights of the poet’s heaven, which would seem comic were it not for the majestic grandeur of the language describing it, down to the reality. The old officer’s story had its effect. Mark felt no longer hopelessly isolated.

“ In any capacity whatever ”—that was the reassuring phrase. The impeccable Gazette would not keep him out of it, after all. If he could not go restored to his rank at the head of his troop, he would go with a rifle and bandolier.

He felt happy—exultant. The daze of the morning had not really been a daze, but only a haze; and it had drifted and dwindled away, the last wisp being blown away by the breath of the Colonel’s reiteration:

“ In any capacity whatever.”

He had sat beside Angela in the schoolhouse, and he knew that she read his purpose in his face. He knew that she would never ask him if he had made up his mind. She looked at him and understood.

He sprang to his feet at the first chords of the Anthem, and his voice mingled with hers.

“ God save the King! ”

CHAPTER VI

MARK ROWLAND was the second son of Sir Spencer Rowland, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., the Governor of the Calabash Islands, that Archipelago which has recently been attracting so much attention from the enemies as well as the friends of Great Britain. Born in the far East, where his father had been a Colonial Secretary, Mark had been sent to England with his brother to be educated. They were beyond the needs of a preparatory school at this time, and had gone direct to Marlborough, and in due course to a University.

His brother Rupert had got into the Annexation Department, and some authorities affirmed that he would do as well for himself (and his country) as his father had done for his country (and himself). But Mark did not seem to be so highly endowed with the talent of getting on. He had been forced to content himself with a humbler Department in the public service, and after five years of undistinguished work, he had retired to the country.

Among his many activities in the way of acquisition, Sir Spencer Rowland had had a period of devotion to the English landscape. It was at a time when English landscapes could be bought exceedingly cheap, especially those made beautiful by cereals. England was being turned into a foreign granary, and cargoes of frozen meat were daily arriving at the docks. Pessimists declared that English agriculture had had its day, and farms were to be picked up in every direction.

This was the moment for judicious buying, Sir Spencer perceived. He acquired from some pessimists in East Nethershire a few thousand acres at what he believed would be a remunerative price, and before six years had passed he found that, in spite of his absence—some people said on account of his absence—his impressions in this respect were fully justified. The property was paying extremely well, and of course everyone saw then that he had got it too cheap. It was when the gentleman who had managed the little estate died suddenly, that Sir Spencer had suggested, by cable, that Mark might, if he pleased, take over the management until he had made up his mind what serious work he would tackle.

Mark, who loved the English landscape, was delighted to have such a chance, and for some years he had succeeded in carrying out such schemes of development as had surprised his neighbours nearly as much as himself. But suddenly Sir Spencer had taken a holiday in England, and had told Mark that he had been calculating for some time on there being so enormous a demand upon india-rubber throughout Europe that he rather thought a period of great prosperity was approaching for the holders of such estates as grew rubber, and as he himself had taken the precaution, before leaving his post in the East for one in the West, to acquire a few square miles of undeveloped rubber forest in Ceylon, he should like one of his sons to go out to that island and see if the accounts which he had received of the scientific culture of his property were trustworthy.

Mark had heard nothing previously about the acquisition of the Ceylon forest, for his father thought it desirable to extend those principles of reticence which are about all the principles a diplomatist should possess if he means to be successful in his career, to his own family; but learning now of Sir Spencer’s foresight, he was pleased at the prospect of spending some years in the East—he had often wished that he had tried for the Indian Civil Service—and forthwith accepted his father’s suggestion.

During the next few weeks he became aware of the fact that he was the son of a really great man. He went through all the business papers connected with the purchase and the reorganization of the rubber estate, and every hour’s examination of these documents showed him how consummate had been Sir Spencer’s arrangements, and how thoughtfully he had maintained more than his customary official secrecy in carrying them out. No attempt had been made to negotiate any of the product of the plants during the five years that had passed since the estate had changed hands; every effort had been made to develop on scientific principles a growth that should one day prove extremely valuable.

“ Oh, yes,” said Sir Spencer casually—he spoke quite casually of the greatest concerns, even in the bosom of his family. “ Oh, yes; I went into the question thoroughly with Marston of the Botanical Research Department—it was his duty, of course, to give me all the information in his power, in case I should have to advise the Home Government to make a grant to our new colony for the encouragement of rubber-planting —and I was made acquainted with the result of his experiments covering more than twenty-five years. I never was more surprised than when he showed me how easily a fortune could be made by doing the thing properly. And Marston. mind you, did not own a single tree; he had slaved away for twenty-five years in the most trying climates, all for the botanical side of the question. I have a great respect for old Marston. That is the sort of man to admire, Mark—truly noble —self-sacrificing—and that. You must admire such men, Mark—yes, admire them, but not—well, not slavishly—don’t let your admiration for them lead you into the snare of imitating them.”

Sir Spencer Rowland was not a man to inculcate upon his son principles which he had not practised himself. Mark knew that he had never flattered such men as he admired to the extent of imitating them. Dr. Marston had died the year before of jungle fever, but Sir Spencer Rowland had got a K.C.B. (Civil Division), as well as his K.C.M.G., and become a wealthy man all through his own exertions.

So Mark had resigned from the Yeomanry and had gone to Ceylon, expecting to remain there for at least ten years. He had shown on the rubber estate that he had inherited his father’s admirable talent for organization, and that business faculty which had enabled him to make a success of the Nethershire estate, bought at the height of agricultural pessimism, enabled him to work up the Ceylon plantation to a point that even his father, who was an optimist as to the results of his own judgment, had not believed it possible to reach in ten years’ time, and Mark had only been three in achieving it.

It was at the end of his fourth year in the island that a Stock Exchange incident, known as the Rubber Boom, convulsed the world; and it was when this dynamic machine had been worked up to its maximum power that Mark got a cablegram from his father, informing him that the whole of the rubber estate had been sold.

Mark was at first annoyed that such a transaction should be carried out over his head, but as, unlike Dr. Marston, neither he nor his father had associated themselves with the growing of india-rubber through its fascination simply as a botanical experiment, he found it easy, after a while, to take a business view of the business. He had every confidence in the ability of his father to make a good bargain. He never learned to a penny what price had been paid to his father for the property; but what he did know was that the price at which it was put on the market by the syndicate who had bought it was something over a million pounds. He also found that his father had stipulated that all the members of his family should be assigned shares in the company, in addition to the price agreed on, and that Mark was to be made one of the directors.

Mark felt that he had no cause for complaint. He knew that the property would easily pay a dividend on the sum for which it was put into the market, and he believed that he could resume his interest in the English landscape from the point when it had been interrupted in favour of the Singalese. He returned to Nethershire and to the house which his sister, Lady Barston, had taken until her husband, who was a Colonial Secretary in the Marguerite group of the Windward Islands, should think fit to retire. She had the education of two children to consider, a girl at an excellent seaside school and a boy at another. She saw both of them several times in the course of the year, and much preferred the glimpses she had of them to fighting the mosquitoes that swarm over the Marguerites.

Mark had not been more than a day in her house before she assured him that it was his duty to get married. But although she had demonstrated to him how fascinating married life was when an ocean separates husband and wife, quite six months had passed before he announced to her that he had prevailed upon Angela Inman to promise to marry him.

Lady Barston was greatly pleased, and took to herself all the credit for so highly creditable an incident.

“ She is a charming girl, and there is every likelihood that she will be left quite a little fortune by her godfather. Colonel Lullington is her godfather, you know.”

“ He has no children of his own? ” said Mark interrogatively.

“ None. Mrs. Inman told me that he had always regarded Angela with the affection of a parent,” replied the sister.

“ I suppose a godfather cannot even be looked on as an honorary parent,” said Mark.

“ Angela is a good girl, and an excellent manager; she deserves all her luck.”

“ Meaning me?”

“ Of course you are included in it. I consider that any girl might reckon herself lucky in marrying you, Mark.”

“ I wonder.”

“ Don’t be affected. You are only thirty, and you have already made enough money to prevent your having anxiety on that score. Colonel Lullington, if not a very wealthy man, must still be quite well off.”

“ Are you not mixing things up a bit, Cecile? You’ve jumped from the question of Angela’s luck being centred in me to the question of Colonel Lullington’s possible legacy.”

“ Surely it is possible for a girl to be lucky in more ways than one? ”

“ I suppose it is, since it is possible for a man. I’m an example of the man—a consummate sister, a sufficient income, and Angela’s promise.”

But although it was generally agreed that Mark Rowland was a very lucky man and that Angela Inman was a particularly fortunate young woman, still he would have thought himself luckier still if some definite date had been mentioned in connection with his plans for the future. Angela’s mother was an invalid and her wants had always been administered to by her daughter; and this daughter had so strong a sense of duty that she could not bring herself to delegate the care of her mother to a stranger; and Mark did not see himself settling down in any house except one that belonged to himself.

In these circumstances, he felt that his luck—and Angela’s—could be improved on. He had often heard that a year of courtship is worth five years of matrimony; and like a good many other men, he was extremely anxious to test the truth of the rumour. He had found the first six months of their engagement a period that was brightened by anticipation; but he thought that it was quite long enough for experimental purposes: he fancied that he could compare this six months of courtship with two and a half years of married life without detriment to the justice of the conclusion.

And this was the thought which was uppermost in his mind on the day before the War had fallen like a bombshell that spread all over our islands, hurling away all thoughts of marrying and giving in marriage for a period.

“ What would happen if we had been married? ” was the question which he asked himself when he awoke the next day and began to think what was in front of him. He was eager to make a move toward the fightingline, whether that line should be on the Continent of Europe or on the shores of Great Britain; and only for a moment did he ask himself if it was good luck or bad that had prevented Angela and himself from being wife and husband. Would he have been so eager to go if his going involved leaving her behind him?

It took him only a few minutes to decide that in this particular their luck had not deserted them. It would have been a dreadful thing for them to part, but they would have faced it: he knew that he would have left her arms, and that her arms would not have held him back for a single hour. But what would their hour of separation have been like?

He got up at his usual hour, in spite of his having had only a short sleep. But, even so, he had a sense of having gone asleep when on sentry duty. What right had he to go asleep when he had allowed a whole day to pass without offering himself to the War Office, as so many other men old enough to be his father had done —men with a long list of service to their credit in past years, when he had been doing nothing except making that easily-acquired fortune which he had achieved.

His sister had read the papers by the time he appeared at the table, and he could see that she had begun to realize something of the magnitude of the event that had crushed all other news into an insignificant column.

“ They are going to send an army to help France; it has been decided,” she cried, with the Times in her hand. “ Everyone is joining. What a pity it is that you resigned from the regiment! ”

He smiled, remembering what her exclamation had been the previous day on this very point; but he was too polite to remind her of it.

“ Yes, and they have caught Kitchener in time,” she continued, referring to the paper.

“ That’s a good beginning,” said he. “ Kitchener is a good catch.”

“ I didn’t think that the Radicals had it in them to fight,” she cried.

“ Radicals? Who are they? My dear girl, take my word for it, from to-day there are neither Radicals nor Conservatives in the country—there is but one party and that is the Fighters. There’s nothing like a war for bringing about a peace between friends. That’s a fair string of paradoxes. All the same, I’m glad for the sake of the country that the Conservatives are in the Opposition. They will show the Government how the Radical Party should have acted when Kruger was the Kaiser.”

“Go on with your breakfast: I’ll have finished the paper in good time for you,” said she, with her eyes searching for something illuminating along the second rank of headlines.

“ I’m not impatient,” said he.

Nor was he; his heart was too full of the matter that had engrossed his thoughts since he had left his bed. He was impatient only to become part of the great muscles of the war; for if gold is the sinews of war, assuredly men are the muscles, and Mark knew that every muscle in the country would soon be strained to the utmost to do the work which had been imposed upon it. He gave but little attention to his breakfast. He was quite ready to agree with Cecile that in the absence of the cook, the gardener’s wife had done wonders. The sole was as golden as usual; but it might have been plaice so far as he was concerned. He had wasted a whole day over his meals and maunderings. Every hour was precious now.

“ You didn’t come back from the concert until late,” resumed his sister, addressing herself to the coffee. “ But I suppose you were in the house before the scare—oh, I forgot that I didn’t tell you. Mrs. Harris told Cobbett and Cobbett told me that there was a dreadful scare late in the night. Mr. Wadham had a big hayrick and it caught fire somehow, and everyone believed that it was Wilmshurst Beacon that had been set alight to tell of the Germans having landed.”

“ Oh, yes; we were just on our way back from the concert with General Drawbridge,” said he. “ We saw the light and were probably the first victims of the scare. But it really looked as if it was the Beacon in a blaze. We felt as if we were ghosts of the Napoleonic days. Funny! the General had just been telling us how his grandfather had stood where we were standing, when people went to bed nightly expecting to be awakened by the sound of Boney’s cannons.”

“ How amusing! Mrs. Harris says that people are laying in barrels of flour and sides of bacon. But why there should be a famine on account of the war I’m sure I can’t tell. Should we get in anything, Mark? Harris says that the peaches never looked better. We shall have plenty of those on the south wall next week.”

“ In that case, I wouldn’t lay in anything unless maraschino; I’m looking forward to Melba peaches every day, mind.”

And then he rose quickly from the table. The reference made by his sister to the Beacon scare reminded him that Dr. Charwood had asked him to call at his house in the course of the day. He had suggested between the hours of two and three, and Mark recollected that he had assented without question—without foreseeing the possibility of his being in the hands of the tailor at that time, being measured for a khaki uniform.

Now he felt that it would be ridiculous for him to loaf around the stables as he usually did, until it was time for him to keep his appointment, unless——

And then the thought occurred to him: Charwood had been, he knew, in charge of a Red Cross Ambulance during the first year of the war in South Africa, and he was still on the Council of the Association. Might it not be, then, that Charwood assumed that he, Mark, meant to make the attempt to rejoin his old regiment, and so wished to give him a hint as to how he could carry out his intention?

The more he thought upon this, the more convinced he became that Charwood would not have made an appointment with him merely for the sake of discussing the campaign. No, it was something important that he had to communicate, though he had spoken casually, so as to prevent the General from fancying too much. Charwood most likely knew that the General had applied for a job, and if he suspected that the Doctor was going to do something for him, Mark, he might bore Charwood for something—a job as dresser, maybe— goodness knows what. Poor old Drawbridge was desperate for a job.

Mark hurried to the telephone. It was still early. The Doctor might not yet have left his house. He would ring him up.

CHAPTER VII

“YES, I’m here.—Yes, if you motor—I’ll be starting for Lullington Manor in half an hour. —Oh, well, if you insist—how can I say whether it’s mportant or not?—it all depends—all right, I’ll wait for you till ten-thirty.”

That came from the Doctor’s end of the wire. On hanging up his receiver, Mark hastened to the motor-house and got out the smaller of his cars.

Dr. Charwood’s house was two miles away in the direction of Chilworth, so that four minutes was long enough for the trip. The Doctor was having a pipe over his paper in the garden when Mark arrived.

“ Here I am,” said the latter. “ You suggested a ater hour, when we parted—it must have been about two in the morning—but then I had no idea of all that I had before me. This war—every man will be needed—”

“ And a good many more,” said the Doctor. “ You resigned from the Yeomanry.”

“ Yes, confound it!—that’s just my trouble to-day,” said Mark.

“ Is it? ” said the Doctor. “ I hope so. I felt sure that you would be anxious to rejoin, and that’s why I thought it safer to ask you to come to me to-day. Come into my consulting-room. Everybody’s wanting to join something to-day. General Drawbridge gave me a bad half-hour outside his own door when I had driven him there at a quarter past one in the morning. Sit down.”

They had entered the consulting-room, and the Doctor was looking about for a thing with tubes and ivory nozzles.

Mark gave a laugh.

“ What do you mean by bringing me in here and then waving such a weapon in my face? ” he said.

“ I’ll tell you,” replied Charwood. “ Last night— it was past midnight, but never mind—-at that time I was standing beside my car when your party came up. You noticed how I turned suddenly round—you were a little behind Miss Inman.”

“ I noticed it. I thought that perhaps I was out of the light of your lamps, and you had not recognized me.

“ I recognized you; but what I didn’t understand was your breathing—I didn’t like the sound of it. No matter how quickly you had walked, you shouldn’t have been so done up as to make you breathe like a fog-horn.”

“ I agree with you. But the fact is that I’ve been lazy all this summer. I have found myself latterly to be badly out of condition. Of course, it would have been absurd for me to come to you about such a trifle. I know that when I pull myself together and take proper exercise, I shall be as hard as nails. Don’t you think so? ”

“ Has it not occurred to you that your laziness, as you call it, might be the cause of your being out of condition, and not the other way about? ”

“ It certainly did not. There’s nothing the matter with me except that I’m out of condition. I didn’t play enough cricket this year.”

“ Because you found that the making of quick runs tired you? ”

“ I didn’t make enough runs, quick or slow, to tire me; but now that you mention it, 1 did feel now and again as if I was getting old; and—yes, by Jupiter, I found myself more done up than I should have been at tennis. Is there anything in that? We all have our bad years as well as our good. I’ve known many a first-class man play like a pelican for months at a stretch.”

“I’m going to examine you properly, Rowland— lungs and heart and all round.”

“ But why heart? A chap doesn’t breathe through his heart—lungs, if you please, but let my poor old heart be.”

“ I’ll have a go at the heart first and get it over. If I do pass the heart, we needn’t bother much about the emphysema.”

“ And what the mischief is emphysema? ”

“ It’s the pussy cat that in some moment of abstraction a chap swallows, and every now and again is crying to get out.”

“ Oh, then I’ve had that cat for a couple of years, and more, only mine is a kitten. It mews often enough in bed. I took it for granted that that meant only a touch of catarrh—I’m not trying to pun when I say cat-arrh. I’ve tried to feed it with jujubes—black currant things, you know.”

“ I know. Now let me hear the kitten mew—I’m beginning with the lungs, to please you. Take off your collar and let me get at your chest and back.”

“ Oh, well,” said Mark in the tone of a man who is so much at the mercy of another that he does not think it worth while to utter more than the feeblest protest.

The Doctor applied his stethoscope and Mark breathed for him. But this examination did not last longer than a few minutes.

“You have two patches of emphysema,” said Charwood. “ They will not kill you unless they increase much more than they are likely to do. I’m pretty sure that they would not cause you to be rejected for the Army.”

“ That’s hopeful,” said Mark, “ for I’m going to rejoin or to join something to-day—you may bet your boots upon that, my friend.”

“ And now for the rest,” said the Doctor quietly.

The thing with tubes was put into action over the region of the heart and kept there for some time, with an occasional shift, but within a narrow area. Then the Doctor removed it and laid it on the table beside him.

There was silence for some time in the room—for about half an hour, it seemed to Mark. He looked at the Doctor’s face, but it was hopelessly expressionless. He had a curious impression of detachment from everything, and immediately afterwards a cold feeling down his spine, then a movement—hardly a rush— of blood to his face. He had once had a dream of standing in the dock and being sentenced to death. He recollected how he had felt in that dream. This was it—he was conscious of the same feeling when the silence became absurd in its duration.

“ Why the mischief don’t you speak? ” cried Mark at last. “ It doesn’t matter to you. I suppose I’m only another of your ‘ cases ’—not especially interesting—nothing new to write about in the Lancet— nothing particular, only it means—what the devil does it mean to me—to me, mind; I don’t care a curse about you, but me—me—what—? ”

“ I’ll tell you exactly, Rowland. It means that you have a dilated heart, and that you’ll not pass the medical inspection—that’s all that it means,” said the Doctor. “ You may, taking proper precautions, live to be eighty; but you’ll be rejected if you try for the Army; or if a doctor passes you, he’ll be guilty of murder.”

“ That may be so; but I’ll get into the Army by some means,” said Mark, after a long pause. “ What’s the good of telling me that I may live to be a hundred if I’m not allowed to do what I please with my life? If I’m so bad as you say I am, why shouldn’t I be allowed to do what I please for a month or two and die honourably on the field of—oh, hang it all! I’m getting as operatic as the Kaiser himself—‘ Let me like a soldier fall,’ and all that sort of rot! I’ll be singing next ‘ I fear no foe in shining armour.’ ”

The Doctor looked at him as he strode to and fro in the consulting-room, but did not speak a word. At last Mark came to a standstill.

“ I expect you think I’m making an infernal fool of myself,” he said, more bitterly than repentantly.

“ I think that you are behaving just now as you should,” said Charwood quietly. “ I did not quite calculate on your having your heart so set on fighting.”

“ My heart—my heart so set on fighting? You must be shocked to find that a fellow with so rotten a heart as mine should set it upon anything, let alone fighting! ” laughed Mark. “ But all the same, I’m going to fight, and you’re going to help me. It was you who passed me for the Yeomanry six years ago. Was I all right then? ”

“ Quite all right.”

“ Then why not let that inspection serve for my return to the regiment? It’s not too much to ask. Chaps are not subjected to medical inspection every year or two.”

“ Rowland, be reasonable. Hang it all, man, I’ve not said anything so very serious. There’s no sentence of death, or anything like it, in what I have told you. If you follow my instructions, you may be practically sound within a year or two——”

“ A year or two! ”

“ I’ve known men quite as bad in the same way as you pull themselves together in a good deal less than a year.”

“ A year! Where will the war be in a year, I should like to know? ”

Mark began once more his pacing of the room.

“If we can put the same spirit into the manhood of the country as you show, Rowland, we can afford to laugh at the Germans and their conscription,” said the Doctor.

“ Spirit? . . . My God, Charwood, do you know that I’m engaged to marry Angela Inman? ”

“ I have congratulated you—and her, long ago. Isn’t your engagement a sufficient reason for——”

“ For what?—for shirking? ”

“ For looking after yourself.”

“ Oh, this is not a time for men to think of looking after themselves; we’ve got to look after the Germans, and that will take us all our time. How could I look Angela Inman in the face and tell her quietly that instead of going out to fight by the side of the other chaps—by the side, perhaps, of old Drawbridge and Colvin—men older than my father—I mean to stay at home and look after myself? ”

“ Miss Inman is a reasonable girl; she will not be so foolish as to—”

“ If I thought that she would not be so foolish—if I thought that she would have anything to do with me after I had excused myself from the fighting, I would have nothing more to do with her. Great Caesar Augustus! can’t I hear the people talking about me when the news gets out that I’m staying at home to look after myself, by the doctor’s orders? Don’t you think that I can see the chaps in the club in a month’s time, when I enter—only the old crocks will be left— can’t you see them nodding coldly for politeness’ sake, and then quickly burying their faces in their papers again? Can’t you hear them muttering the moment I leave the room, ’ Dam convenient thing a heart is now and again, what? ’ ‘ Never knew that Rowland had a heart until the day that war was declared.’ ‘ Had he a premonition of the war that made him resign from the Yeomanry? ’ I hear them, Charwood, and I tell you I can’t stand it.”

“ Let them come to me.”

“ Oh, don’t you sec me saying, ‘ Gentlemen, let me refer you to Dr. Charwood for my character as a nonshirker ’? Or maybe you would suggest that I get a medical certificate of unfitness from you and have it framed neatly and hung about my neck for the inspection of all comers? I could easily have a card printed on the blind beggar’s pattern, with ‘ Weak Heart’ on it—not a bad idea that, I think—‘ Kind, Christian friends, don’t judge by appearances; I’m not a slacker, as you might reasonably suppose, but a poor invalid.

Please don’t speak too loud or I may have a fit.’ Oh, man, I can’t stand it, and I won’t! ”

The telephone bell rang imperatively. The Doctor had never heard a more welcome sound.

He rose, saying, “ I’m sorry,” and went to the receiver in front of his desk.

“ Hillo! yes, Dr. Charwood—it was bound to go up something—what, hundred and three—all right. I was just starting, in any case—of course, I’ll drive out direct—twenty minutes at the most.”

He hung up the receiver.

“ Colonel Lullington has had a bad night,” he said. *’ I mustn’t lose a minute. You can understand.”

“ Oh, yes; it is I that should apologize to you for having kept you so long,” said Mark. “ Don’t think me no end of an ass, Charwood, for the rot I’ve talked —you’ve had some tirades from idiotic patients before now, I’m sure. You don’t mind how far they go. I shouldn’t wonder if you’re interested to see just how far they will go sometimes. I can’t expect that they’re all so far gone as I’ve shown myself to be.”

The Doctor laid his hand on his shoulder.

“ My dear Rowland,” he said. “ I honour you more than any man I know.”

“ In spite of my tirade? ”

“ On account of it. Now, don’t do anything rash. If you give me leave, I will tell Miss Inman how it stands with you. She will not——”

“ Tell her nothing—for God’s sake, tell her nothing— at least for the time being. Give me time to think over what you have said. I may be able to see daylight in spite of the hopelessness of the present moment. What about a specialist? Do you think that I should see a specialist? ”

“ By all means see one—-there’s no better man than Elkin of Brunton. And if he should speak a little more broadly than I have done, you mustn’t be discouraged; he’s given that way. I tell you frankly, there’s no reason for you to be discouraged. Of course, it is a beastly disappointment and that, but—oh, there’s the car at the door. Drop in again, old chap, and let me know if you go to Elkin; but, in the meantime, no violent exercise.”

They were standing together, by this time, in the porch. The Doctor’s motor was purring away outside in front of Mark’s silent machine. The Doctor was fortunate in a chauffeur of fifty-five.

When the live car had whirled itself away, Mark went to his starting-handle. The spark did not catch at once, and for the first time he was conscious of a shrinking from a second attempt. He felt dead tired, and then he began to recall how often during the summer he had had the same feeling—how often he had upbraided himself for his slackness—for failing to keep himself in condition—how often Angela had laughed at him for giving up his racquet at the end of a very moderate set at tennis. He wondered if people were as frequently deceived in themselves as he had been—if many mistook the symptoms of a serious malady for mere slackness.

With the splendid self-confidence of a man who has never consulted a doctor in all his life for any more alarming complaint than a relaxed throat, or an hour’s indigestion, consequent upon a too pronounced curry, he had come to think of himself as being outside the circle of people who are liable to the visitation of the microbes of disease. It had never entered into his calculations to be unable to keep any appointment through illness. Never had such a thing happened to him either at home or abroad.

And yet, all this time, that heart of his had been playing him false—not from the standpoint of sentiment, but from that of pneumatics—or should it be dynamics—hydrostatics?—no matter which, his heart had betrayed him. As an efficient blood pump it was failing in its duty.

He was ready to think of it as a servant who, after a year or two of good work, suddenly develops bad habits, until some friendly neighbour, who has had a chance of observing his conduct, thinks it a neighbourly act to inform his master of his goings-on.

Surely this was what the psalmist had meant when he affirmed that the heart of man is deceitful above all things.

He had been standing over his starting-handle, looking at the Automobile Club pierced brass badge on the top of the radiator, when his first attempt to start the engine had missed. In ordinary circumstances, he would, of course, have flooded the carburettor; but now he had a certain dogged determination to compel the thing to do his will even under unfavourable conditions. He bent over the handle and gave it a vicious twist, but a determined one, and when the engine started at the instant, he had an impression of having triumphed. He had shown the beast that when he had made up his mind to a thing he was not to be brow beaten.

That gave him a certain amount of satisfaction. He got into his seat and started for home; but when about a mile along the road he heard the hooter of a big car some distance behind him, and took his own side of the road to let it pass. As it went by him he saw that it was a 40 h. p. Rolls-Royce, and that it held four officers in khaki.

He touched his accelerator pedal and his car responded at once. He saw his little Standard travelling after the big car as it had never travelled before. He was not going to be run past by those bounders in khaki, whatever the consequence might be. But it so happened that the driver of the Rolls-Royce was in a hurry, and pushed on out of the range of vision of any follower. His hooter, at a distance of a couple of miles, sounded in the ears of Mark like the horns of Elfland faintly blowing.

He did not mind. He kept up the pace of his car on the straight road and refused to take the turn that should have led him home. On he went, for mile after mile, over hills that gave him many glimpses of the sea, and down through fertile valleys where the wheat was being cut down in even swathes by the reaping-machine —past dreaming villages clustering around towered churches—through protesting files of ducks waddling among the smooth cobbles to their pool, fed by a wrinkled streamlet—past hurrying cars of every build and all seeming to have urgent business before them. Everybody seemed to him to have urgent business ahead, and could he doubt that their business was connected with the war?

Everyone, save only himself, seemed to be hurrying to the war. He fancied he could read their purpose on the faces of all the men whom he passed. They were hurrying to the war. He alone was making a pretence of it.

He had travelled for forty miles in this fit before he asked himself whither he was going and wherefore. He recognized some features of a village through which he was passing—a large pond with gardens at the back of quite small houses bordering it at one part, and a well-kept common with a drinking-fountain memorial to Queen Victoria. He knew the place and he recollected that he was acquainted with two men who had houses quite close to it. He went past the entrance gates of one, with their stately pillars and a crest done in wrought iron. He began to ask himself what he should say to account for his presence here to the owner if he chanced to come across the man.

And then the truth flashed upon him: he was running away from his fellows. His instinct was that of the sick animal that goes to hide itself away from its kind, and die in solitude. He felt that if his most intimate friend had appeared before him he would only have put on extra speed in order to evade the ordeal of an explanation.

He shot past the entrance-gates, but before he had gone a hundred yards farther, his engine stopped. He had used up all the petrol in his tank. He wondered if his chauffeur had put a spare tin into the locker; but when he went to the locker he found it empty.

CHAPTER VIII

FOR some minutes he had a sense of despair; it could not have been stronger if he had broken down when engaged on some business of supreme importance.

Suddenly he burst into a fit of laughter.

“ Good Lord! ” he cried, “ have I gone mad? Why am I running away? Why am I in dread of meeting someone I know? Is this the form of lunacy known as agoramania? Is it possible that it can come upon one all in a minute? ”

And before he had worked out the mystery of this impulse that had driven him forty miles from his home, another car came up. He turned about, and the moment that he recognized the driver he saw that the driver had recognized him. The man was Denis Cawfield, a retired naval officer who was the owner of the house with those stately iron gates.

“ Hallo,” he cried, when he had stopped his car. “What are you doing here, Rowland? Broken down? ”

“ Broken down,” said Mark; but he was not thinking of his motor.

“ That’s all right,” said Captain Cawfield. “ Don’t tinker with it yourself; I’ve got a chap who knows his job—all that he doesn’t know about the guts of a motorcar isn’t knowledge. You’ll come up to my place and have lunch and I’ll tell my chap to set your machine going by the time we’ve finished. Is it the magneto? ”

“ No,” said Mark; “ the petrol. My man is a Territorial, and he cleared off without filling my tank or putting in a spare tin.”

“ Oh, that’s not a big thing,” said the other. “ But you’ll come to lunch, anyway? I want to talk over this business with you. Is that so-called Kaiser quite mad? Has he got any idea what he’s up against? What are you going to join? I wouldn’t go back to the Yeomanry if I were you.”

“ What about yourself? ” cried Mark, with an abruptness that sounded almost savage. “ What about yourself? Have you joined anything yet? ”

The man did not seem to notice the aggressiveness of his tone.

“ Oh, don’t talk about it, Rowland—don’t put such a question to me,” he replied, with some measure of dolefulness. “ Don’t you begin to grin when I tell you, or I’ll knock the sheep’s head off you. I had no choice left to me. I was on the half-pay list and they’ve chucked me a half-pay job—they’ve given me a command—of what do you fancy?—you couldn’t guess —only our Admiralty could devise such a job.”

“ What the mischief is it—a steam-hopper? ”

“ I’d be proud if it was a steam-hopper—no, it’s not a steam-hopper; it’s a boom—a boom, Rowland—an infernal submarine boom.”

“ A boom? I thought that a boom was something on the Stock Exchange.”

“ Ah, that would be something like to take charge of, my son; but this is a dam thing of chains and slavery —it comes under the schedule of harbour defences. I’m placed in charge of all the boom defences of Avon-mouth.”

“ The Dockyard? ”

“ Oh, ay; there’s the Dockyard, to be sure; but there are as many brass-bound loafers about every dockyard as should suffice to inspect every boom three times every watch, and yet when I applied for a job two days ago, they could think of no one silly enough for the Avonmouth boom but me—and me, mind you, as sound to-day as I was fifteen years ago! Oh, the Dalmatian hounds at the Admiralty! ”

“ Heavens above us! What wouldn’t I give to be allowed to command even a boom! ”

The sincerity of Mark’s cry startled the other. It took him some seconds to recover from its effects; and then it dawned on him that Mark was doing his chaffing just a little too well.

“ Shut up! ” he said. “ It’s jolly easy for you to poke your fun at me, when you know you can have every darned thing you please now that you are a free man. What are we waiting for? Jump in, and I’ll take you in to lunch and give you a two-gallon tin of petrol free.”

“ It’s too kind of you, Cawfield; but I can’t stay today,” said Mark. “ I’ve got to push on. But your petrol will be a godsend. I’ll go with you for the tin.”

“ Where are you off to in such a blessed hurry? ”

“ Isn’t everybody in a hurry to-day? Fact is— secret mission—dispatches—must be in the hands of —never mind whom—before night. Don’t press me further—I’m sworn to secrecy—you’ll understand.”

“ Oh, that’s the way the wind blows, is it? The girl I left behind me—I know. Well, of course if you must; but you know as well as I do that you needn’t really, you only think that you must.”

“ If I think that I must, it amounts to the same thing as I must, doesn’t it? ”

“ Right you are. I hope she’ll be kind to you. Take my advice, don’t try to get back into the Yeomanry. The Yeomanry will be kept at home to guard booms and things like that that nobody cares a curse for. You get put on something that’ll take you into the firing line, Rowland, my son. If you keep a straight upper lip you’ll get anything you ask for.”

“ Even petrol—I didn’t ask for it, but you were civil enough to offer it some time ago.”

“ Well, you do seem to be in some hurry. Oh, I can understand. You think it jolly certain that some other chap will be on his way to her from the opposite direction with love and kisses. I daresay you’re right, though most likely you won’t think so when you come to think over it next year. I wish you’d come inside, if only for a whisky-and-soda; but if you won’t, why, you won’t.” “ It’s very decent of you, Cawfield.”

The man drove off, sounding his horn for the lodge-keeper to open those ornate gates of his, and Mark was left to wonder if he himself would be considered brilliant enough to look after the upkeep of a boom supposed to protect a harbour from the depredations of an enemy. He did not think that it was much of a job; but it was at least a job, and if he were entrusted with the carrying out of it, he would feel that he was doing something.

The promised petrol was brought out to him, and he filled his tank and started his engine.

How much longer did he mean to keep up the pretence of doing something important—some duty demanding the utmost expedition? At first he had derived some satisfaction of a kind from the sense of importance that the rapid motion gave to him ; but it was no more than the satisfaction of which a man is conscious when he is dressed in the robes of a great personage. On starting after his delay of a quarter of an hour, he felt no further satisfaction. He only felt that he had been a poor fool to be taken in by his self-deception.

Still he went on. He felt that he never wished to see his home again. He went on until, at a level crossing of a railway, he saw on the signal-box the words:

EAST BRUNTON.

East Brunton? Who had been talking to him recently about Brunton?

It took him some minutes remembering that it was at Brunton the specialist named by Dr. Charwood practised. While waiting at the closed gate of the railway crossing he had time to make up his mind about going to this man and getting his verdict as to the degree of margin allowed in the medical inspection, and as to whether or not he, Mark, would come within the limit allowed by a moderately lax inspector.

He came to the conclusion that there might be some hope for him were he to visit the specialist—the man might not be so exacting as Charwood—he might not have so exalted an ideal of soundness. At any rate, he could not say anything that would increase the gloomy view of his future that Mark had acquired in Charwood’s consulting-room; and, so thinking, Mark watched the train slip by—Territorial sentries had already been posted close to the signal-box and at every open part of the line—and ran on to the town beyond.

Everyone knows Brunton, that picturesque little town which was the centre of the Spa-drinkers of the eighteenth century, and which has been increasing its fame ever since as a refined home for persons of ample means and a reputation to maintain for indifferent health. It is the abode of the most refined valetudinarianism in England, and thus is the place where such medical men as have a good working knowledge of the weakness of affluence become wealthy. The general practitioner of Brunton occupies a very humble position in the estimation of the profession—something like that of a Baptist minister in respect of a Cathedral close; or as an Old Bailey attorney in the eyes of the Chancery Bar. It is a town of specialists—of the fine fleur of specialism. It is understood that one can pay a bigger fee for an opinion in Brunton than in any town in England. It is also a town of the most expensive dentists in England, and possibly the most highly qualified. You may dine out there every night of the week and feel quite confident that there is not an unsound tooth at any table—nor one that is the product of nature. Every dentist in Brunton is an artist.

The best set of valetudinarians treat the specialists as equals, and the dentists as very nearly so. Of course there are special favourites, who are asked to dinner and that, but taking the practitioners as a whole, a very large average are admitted to the drawing-rooms as well as to the bedsides of their most highly connected patients, and it is not on record that any one of them took advantage of the courtesy of a patient, or so far forgot himself as to reduce his yearly account in consequence of having been asked to dinner. A specialist never forgets what is due to himself and his profession, however tolerant a patient may show himself.

Quite at the head of the speciality stands Dr. Elkin, and Mark was well aware of his position. But curiously enough he had somehow acquired the notion that sometimes the most distinguished men in the profession may take very little account of those symptoms which men less competent to charge a high fee may regard as important; and it was the force of this impression that caused him to have a gleam of hope from Dr. Elkin’s opinion of his case. He thought that it would be well for him to be frank with the Doctor before proceeding to any examination—that he should tell the man that, in no circumstances, would he, Mark, stay at home. Whether he would pass the medical examination or not he would get into the fighting line. When he had said that, the Doctor would know that no opinion that he might give would matter, and so——

It was with this foolish idea in his mind that he made inquiry for the residence of Dr. Elkin ; but somehow, when he found himself outside the house, with its fine conservatory at one side and the glimpse of a spacious garden at the other, he was not so much inclined to place any dependence on the laxity of Dr. Elkin.

The gentlemanly man of such gravity as could easily command two pounds a week in appreciative quarters, who opened the door, seemed a little scandalized at the idea of anyone approaching the house in a light car without having previously been granted an appointment—if his Standard had been a 50 h.p. Mercedes, it would have been more like the thing, though not quite the thing; but a light Standard seemed to suggest licentiousness to the solemn butler, and he shook his head, quite respectfully, but with an air of rebuke.

“ The Doctor only sees a patient by appointment, sir,” he said, with chastened chilliness.

“ I think he will to-day,” said Mark. “ He must, have seen the awful s{ate of the Stock Exchange, busy and all though he may have been.”

The butler became a changed man; and Mark knew that Dr. Elkin was personally interested in the fluctuation of speculative stocks, and that his butler was in his confidence. It was the shrewdest surmise that had ever come to Mark Rowland.

He whipped out a card and wrote “urgent ” above his name.

“ Just give that to the Doctor,” he said.

As a matter of fact, there was no one in the consulting-room of the great specialist at that hour. The great specialist was reading the Punch of his waiting-room. He was not smoking, however; he never smoked before the evening, and then he kept it up— with brief intervals—until midnight. But when the butler had passed out of sight up the long hall, Mark heard the tinkle of an electric bell, and then of a second.

The man returned almost immediately, saying, in the stealthy voice of one betraying a confidence for a consideration:

“ Please step this way, sir. He will be disengaged shortly.”

He led Mark into a waiting-room. Newspapers to suit all readers were not to be found on the table; only those that aim at a refining influence rather than the most interesting news were there.

And immediately after Mark had entered, another electric bell was set ringing. It was clear that the Doctor was having a busy morning. In spite of his shrewd moments, Mark believed that the Doctor was overwhelmed with work to-day.

He picked up a newspaper, and the Doctor at the other side of the wall put his legs upon a chair and trimmed his nails with exceeding care. It took him a quarter of an hour completing his manicure, and, meantime, Mark heard two more electric bells tinkling like mad. He wondered that the great specialist did not get an assistant. Surely it would pay him.

At the end of twenty minutes the butler returned to the waiting-room.

“ If you please, sir,” he remarked, and Mark followed him through the hall and into a room pretty far down a corridor.

The great specialist was putting away some curious instruments which he had evidently just been using in a diagnosis of an intricate case—what would have seemed to be an intricate case to a less accomplished professor.

He turned round to greet Mark with dignified cordiality:

“ You are the son of Sir Spencer Rowland, are you not? ” he said. “ It must have been your sister who married Sir Reginald Barston. Oh, yes, I have met Sir Reginald Barston. He’s still abroad, I suppose. Ah, yes; dreadful—dreadful thing war. I feel inclined to burn every German book I have in the house. I was at Leipzig for a year. We’ll have to beat them down to the ground, Mr. Rowland-—oh, yes, I know those fellows thoroughly.”

“ It’s very good of you to see me,” said Mr. Rowland at the first joint in the man’s monologue. “ It’s in connection with this war I’ve come to you. I was with Dr. Charwood of Chilworth this morning; and he advised me to see you.”

“ Oh, Phil Charwood and I were at Guy s together,” remarked the Doctor.

“ He told me that I had—at least that he suspected that I had—what was it now—some sort of a heart,” said Mark. “ Now, I’ve made up my mind to be in this war, but I resigned from the Yeomanry a few years ago, and before I can get back I must be examined by the medical officer of the regiment, who is Char-wood, and he refuses to pass me—at least on his own responsibility, but I’m pretty sure from his hints that if you were to pronounce me sound—that is, moderately sound—he would give way to your better judgment.”

“ Not better judgment,” said the specialist indulgently, “ only, of course—oh, well, I’ll see what I can do for you, you may be sure. The heart is a ticklish thing, Mr. Rowland. The more one studies it, the more ticklish it seems. Just let me get at the place. Of course, Charwood did not speak without having examined you.”

“ He examined me in his own way—first the lungs; he was ready to pass the lungs—ah, that was the instrument he used.”

The Doctor was approaching him with the thing of tubes and ebony and ivory such as Charwood had worked with.

“ It’s a rough and ready instrument this; but it will do to begin with,” said the Doctor. “ I have something more delicate in that case; but I usually start with this.”

He subjected Mark to precisely the same tests as had been employed by Charwood, and while he was so engaged his face was as expressionless as Charwood’s had been. But this examination took more than twice the time of the earlier, and somehow the way the man used the instrument suggested to Mark a more exhaustive diagnosis. He also made Mark go through certain unusual exercises and appeared to be noting carefully the effect.

At last he had finished and handed Mark his collar and tie, without a word.

Mark thought he knew the worst.

“ These doctors bear one another out at all hazards,” was the worst that he thought.

“ Ah, I perceive that you agree with Charwood,” he said.

“ On the whole, yes,” replied the Doctor. “ Of course he told you that there was no immediate danger. With ordinary care there is no reason why you should not—

“ Live till I’m eighty? or were you about to say ninety, Doctor? ” said Mark, with a laugh.

“ Quite so—quite so. A certain amount of dilation, that’s all.”

“ A certain amount—enough to prevent my passing the R.A.M.C.? ”

“ I’m afraid that that is so. No man who knew anything of his business would allow you to go on active service. My dear sir, it would be an act little short of murder. If you had come to me—or even to Charwood—when you first found yourself getting tired after a little exertion—you got tired, didn’t you? ”

“ Yes; and I’m tired now, though I’ve only ridden a little over fifty miles. Well, I’ll not take up any more of your time to-day. If you’ll kindly let me know for what sum I shall write you a cheque, I’ll send you one to-night.”

“ I honestly believe, Mr. Rowland, that if you place yourself on a strict regimen you will completely rid yourself of the abnormal pressure due to the dilation; but it will take time, and you must be regular in the increase of whatever reasonable exercise you may take. You should see either Charwood or myself —oh, Charwood will do well enough—every week, and he will prescribe for you the right amount, gradually increasing—everything really depends on the exercise you take—nothing severe, but, at the same time, sufficient to stimulate the action of the heart.”

“ I understand. You think, then, that in about another year-”

“ Or eighteen months—certainly under two years —you will be yourself again. Except for this defect I don’t think that there’s anything the matter with you—a little emphysema perhaps, but nothing to interfere with you.”

“ I’m extremely obliged to you. I should have apologized for coming to you so abruptly, without asking for an appointment, but the fact is I had no intention of coming here when I left Charwood. I’m really obliged to you. Now I know just how I stand. By the way, you haven’t yet told me what is the amount of your fee.”

“You were quite right to come to me, anyhow. Oh, five guineas. This war is not going to be a soft snap, Mr. Rowland; the racket of it would finish you off in a month. But if you take a reasonable amount of exercise daily and keep it up, mind you—that’s most important—keep it up—don’t be discouraged if you happen to feel a little tired now and again—keep it up, you’ll be practically all right in—did I say two years? ”

“ Eighteen months? ”

“ Well, if I said so, I’ll stick to it. Glorious weather! What a summer it has been! ”

“ Simply marvellous. Good-day. I’ll send you your cheque to-night.”

“ Good-day. That German bully will get a lesson now that’ll last him for the rest of his life, take my word for it—good-day.” The butler was waiting for him outside the room door—at a respectful distance—so respectful a distance, in fact, as made Mark sure that he had been listening at the keyhole. When a young man and a young woman have been left alone in a room together, and someone entering finds them sitting separated by a long stretch of sofa, one smiles.

Mark smiled. But not severely. He knew that he was to blame for having suggested the Stock Exchange. The staid butler had doubtless a little flutter now and again in his pantry while his master was soaring on mighty pens through Threadneedle Street via telephone.

CHAPTER IX

HE was ready for bed by the time he got homethat night. He had gone on from Brunton to Wadminster—another twenty-five miles—at the extreme western end of the county, and there he had had a late and half-hearted lunch. He had not been thinking of eating, and it was only when he found himself weaker than he had ever known himself to be in all his life—he actually tottered while refilling his tank at Deepwell Dene—that he thought he would be the better for a bite of something at Wadminster.

He found the little city alive beyond any experience that he had ever had of it. He had always thought of it as one of the most picturesque dormitories in England. The last time that he had visited it he felt as if it had passed peacefully away in its sleep; it seemed decently laid out waiting for the undertaker. But now it was as full of bustle as Piccadilly Circus. The Dean was the first person whom he saw, and the Dean was bustling. The Canons, in the major and minor keys, were going off to the afternoon service with grave faces, and even the Chancellor, usually the exponent of the cult of folded hands and half-closed eyes, was gesticulating with a freedom that, a week ago, he would have affirmed to be bordering on a brawl. The Chancellor was merely confirming the statement of the Bishop’s chaplain, that England was going into the war with clean hands. So it was to the end of the chapter: all were actively agreeing with one another—violently agreeing on all points.

And then a Yeomanry officer of the permanent staff came trotting down the street in khaki. People looked at him; the policeman saluted; but there was no disguising the fact that the general opinion was that he was showing unjustifiable slackness at such a time. Surely he should have been galloping.

There was plenty of khaki in the High Street—men with kit-bags hurrying in the direction of the railway station—and on the apex of the fourteenth-century Gothic resting-place that makes the most picturesque obstruction to the traffic between the cross-roads at the side of the Cathedral, the Flag was flying.

Mark knew several of the clergy, but they were too busily engaged to recognize him in his little motor— it was not as if he had been at the wheel of his Rolls-Royce, which attracted attention—occasionally that of an indulgent constabulary. They were all going in the direction of the Cathedral; he was making for the hotel, and that not the clerical one either, so he escaped observation. In the early part of the day, his feeling was that he should drive so furiously as to impress upon the people whom he met that he was engaged on Imperial business; but now his sole aim was to escape observation. He could not pretend even to himself that he was in touch with the movement of the day: he was out of it—a looker-on from a distance at a nation awake, a nation alive to the fact that its life had been threatened. And it seemed to him that he was the only outsider in the land. The men in khaki were responding to the mobilization order and the clergy here were going to their temple to pray to the God of Battles for victory. He was the only spectator of the movement, and he felt once more dreadfully isolated, like the solitary prisoner taken by an enemy in a first engagement, deprived of arms and without hope of being allowed to take part in another action.

He felt that he was sneaking into the dining-room of the hotel, still warm from the presence of many lunchers and the odour of many joints. No one paid any attention to him; he was an object of no interest to the waiters with the dirty shirt-fronts. They were picking up the remnants of bread left over from the lunch to serve as the basis for the “ cabinet ” pudding for the “ ordinary ” dinner; and when he asked humbly if he could have something to eat, they did not pause in their duty to reply to him. When he asked a second time, the waiter nearest to him passed him on to another who was flicking away the flies from a splash of beer; and this man, continuing his flicking and meeting with some success too, replied that there was cold meat—ribs of beef and saddle of mutton—no, no mutton—mutton was off.

He lunched indifferently off this Hobson’s choice and found a long brandy and soda very refreshing— nearly as much so as the wash to which he treated himself before his meal; and when he had eaten his cheese, he went out-of-doors; he would not remain a minute longer than was necessary in the reeking atmosphere of that old-fashioned “ coffee-room.”

There is only one direction in which people go in Wadminster—that is to the Cathedral, and Mark Rowland went thither, passing through the majestic range of cloisters. He stopped at the corner where the pigeons were strutting. The sound of the organ overflowed from the Cathedral and moved faintly among the great beams of the cloister roof. The sound was majestic, and then came a silence that was more majestic still. He wondered if there was any human being who could resist the impression—the one impression produced by the stillness following the faint sound of the organ music in this place. All that one might feel was concentrated into one solitary impression—that of an ineffable peace. This building was the palace of the Prince of Peace. Here was the solace of Peace; here was the Sanctuary. Here was an asylum for the menaced; here was the City of Refuge into which the avenger dared not enter. The nations of the world might rage furiously together; the noise of their conflict could never disturb the Empire of Peace, whose central dominion was here. So it had been for centuries, and the man who had now come out from the most dread conflict of his life for a moment’s shelter in this haven of calm, could not imagine the coming of any commotion to disturb its tranquillity. He felt that he was in the presence of the Eternal, who makes Himself known to the sons of men, not in the thunder of the battle, not in the crash of the tempest, but in the still, small voice. Mark Rowland felt that whatever God others might worship, his God was the God who speaks out of Eternity in the still, small voice.

Once more he was conscious of the sound of the organ; it seemed to him as if it were moving on winnowing wings between the pillars of the cloisters and searching out the dim, vaulted hollows of the roof—a living thing, a sentient thing, but mysterious; an intermediary between the soul of a man and the Eternity which is its destination.

He listened, sitting on one of the stone seats with his head bowed down to his hands; and he felt the meaning of that sacred word “ Communion.” He felt that he was no longer isolated. He had stretched out his hand through the darkness and it had touched the right hand of God.

Through the silence he could hear a voice speaking slowly within the building, and the words that it spoke were:

“ The peace of God which passeth all understanding . . . the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost be amongst you and remain with you always, Amen.”

• • • • • • •

“ Where on earth have you been? You look like a ghost,” cried his sister when he reached home at the beginning of dusk. “ You cannot have been with Dr. Charwood all this time, for he was here with Mrs. Thorbum just after lunch. They did not come here together; oh, no; but they stayed here together and they went away together. That sort of thing has happened more than once. It would be a good thing for her, I suppose; and it would certainly be a good thing for him; people would always rather that their doctor were married.”

“ I suppose so. Did Charwood say anything about me? ” asked Mark.

“ He told me that you had had something to say to him, but that you had gone off somewhere when he had got the message about Colonel Lullington,” replied Lady Barston. “ He didn’t say much about Colonel Lullington. I don’t think there is much to say about him. There is no doubt that he is very ill. No, Dr. Charwood and Mrs. Thorbum talked mostly about the Red Cross Hospitals. Mrs. Thorburn has been trained and has full certificates and that, and Dr. Charwood was with an ambulance through the Boer War. They are sure that a hospital will be started in every town and village in England, and even then there will not be too many, the doctor says. Isn’t it dreadful to think of? ”

“ Dreadful indeed! Is there anything in the house that I can eat? I’ve had no dinner and only an uneatable lunch.”

“ Gracious heaven! No wonder that you are looking broken down. Of course there’s plenty to eat. Cook has been back since lunch. She saw her son off and seemed greatly cut up about him. I wonder why these people eat peppermint drops when seeing their relations off.”

“ I’ve heard that peppermint perfumes the emotions at any national or personal crisis. The cloak of peppermint covers a multitude of gin. Can she get me something at once? ”

“ Of course. Just give that bell a pull. I had a slice of the salmon that came from Willie Lynch, and chicken—I hardly touched the chicken.”

“ I’ll touch it; and what about the tongue? or was that York ham cooked! ”

“ It was the best we ever had. Here’s Alice. Will you please tell cook to send up cold supper for Mr. Rowland? ”

“ As soon as possible, please.”

The parlourmaid, still drooping from the parting with her “ friend,” but too self-respecting to try to bear up through the medium of so ardent a stimulant as peppermint, said:

“ Yes, my lady—yes, sir,” and made a well-trained exit from the small drawing-room where Lady Barston usually sat after dinner.

Mark was leaving the room when his sister said:

“ Angela has gone to Colonel Lullington. The doctor advised it. She called here on her way. I think she expected to see you. But I had no need to make any excuses for you: she took it for granted that you were off about getting back to your regiment. She expects you to write to her to let her know what luck you had. By the way, what luck have you had? ”

“ None,” replied Mark. “ I can’t rejoin the regiment without a lot of trouble—red tape; you know the War Office of old.”

“ Are they as provoking as ever? Oh, well, you are not bound down to the Yeomanry: there are hundreds of regiments that will only be too glad to get a hold of you. I expect you spent the whole day looking out for your job. Did you look up General Mesey? He might have been able to put you in the way of something to suit you. Wasn’t he Adjutant-General or something? ”

“ Something—not quite A.-G., though. I must hurry and have a wash. I’m about finished.”

“ You look it,” said Cecile as he lingered for a moment at the door.

And he certainly did look finished, and felt it as well. When he got to his bathroom he dropped into a chair. He had made an effort to run upstairs—a vain attempt to prove to his own satisfaction that he was not nearly as bad as the doctors tried to make out. So it is that the sick man hopes to take in the Thing with the dart that is waiting for him round the corner. The Thing is on the look-out for the sick man; but the sick man assures him that he has called at the wrong house. “ I’m the only man here and I’m not sick, am I? I’m going down town to my office as usual. Ta-ta. See you later on; of course I know that; but it will be very much later on.” So he goes jauntily away to his office to find that the Thing with the dart has taken the taxi ahead of him, and is waiting for him in his own private office, and touches him with the point as he pulls open his roll-top desk, and he is found there by the office-boy half an hour later.

“ It was his third stroke,” the doctor says at the inquest. “ I advised him to remain at home, but he was a very active man and would not hear of it.”

“ See what I’ve gone through to-day; and yet I can run upstairs,” was what Mark Rowland felt ; and then dropped into a chair in his bathroom, and gasped.

He felt that he had been foolish in running up those stairs; but he had no intention of gasping his life away. He would be all right in a few minutes; and, after all, had he not done wonders through the day for a man with a heart?

He was able to rise after a ten minutes’ rest, and when he had his bath he felt not merely greatly refreshed, but absolutely as well as he had done for years—sound —perfectly sound. But, all the same, he thought it prudent to go downstairs slowly, to be entertained, while eating his cold chicken and York ham, by the advice which his sister gave him with great generosity, relative to the various advantages and corresponding drawbacks associated with service in many corps. She advised him to accept a captaincy in the Horse Artillery, he was so fond of riding; but, at the same time, she allowed that a good deal was to be said in favour of the Royal Engineers, he was so fond of designing new features in the garden; and then, finding him very irresponsive and giving a good deal of attention to his supper, she went on to talk of what Dr. Charwood and Mrs. Thorburn had talked about. Doctors and hospital nurses were apt to become very callous, she thought; and she really believed that Dr. Charwood and Mrs. Thorburn were looking forward with something like pleasure to the arrival of thousands of wounded soldiers during the next few months. She supposed that medical people became hardened.

At last Mark felt that he had had enough of his sister’s views. He jumped up from the table.

“ Oh, Lord, is one never going to get away from the subject of this war? ” he cried. “ For heaven’s sake, Cecile, let me have a respite. You are all rubbing it into me—rubbing it in. There was that silly concert last night, with all the National Anthems in the world, except that of the Solomon Islanders, played or sung; and afterwards old Drawbridge growling because at sixty-three he was as sound as any man of forty, and today there were the streets of Wadminster crammed with khaki, and the parsons with their faces full of it. I could swear that if they had their own way they would have khaki uniforms spread-eagled over the walls of the Cathedral. The only respite that I had all day from khaki was when I found myself in the cloisters; it was then that I learned——”

He pulled himself up with an abruptness that would have seemed to anyone except a sister extremely rude. As it was, Lady Barston was almost disconcerted by his tirade.

“ What on earth is the matter with you? ” she asked. “ What on earth were you doing at Wadminster? You never told me you were going to Wadminster. I wish you had told me; I would have asked you to change my books for me at the library there. One has such a small choice at the Chilworth branch—I see the same old rows every time I ask for something new. But why on earth did you go to Wadminster? ”

“ God knows,” said he quickly, and then, “ God knows,” slowly and reverently. “ I was led to Wadminster to pass that half-hour alone in the cloisters— no, not alone.”

“ I should say not,” acquiesced his sister. “ I have never been in the cloisters at Wadminster without being surrounded with pigeons—such impudent birds! And there’s hardly ever anything worth eating on them when you have them in a pie.”

“ Good night,” said he.

“ Oh, good night,” said she.

CHAPTER X

THE chattering lady had mentioned to her brother the fact of her having as callers during his absence Dr. Charwood and Mrs. Thorburn. It was not the first time that these two persons had met in the same house, and it certainly was not for the first time that Dr. Charwood had driven that lady in his motor from a house where they had chanced to meet, to her own home, which was a grey, rubble-built, half-timbered cottage embowered among the elms of the avenue just when you have crossed the little wooden bridge on the road that connects the large village of Churlington with the county town of Chilworth.

Mrs. Thorburn had for three years occupied this cottage with a daughter, who had been a child of six when she had come to the county. She had previously been acquainted with one family only, but this was one of the leading families in East Nethershire—namely, the Bromsgroves of Haughton Priory. It was understood that anyone who was good enough for the Bromsgroves to know might be visited without reserve by anyone in the county, and society in East Nethershire is well-known to be “ very exclusive.” Many adventurous persons who, attracted by the charm of the sylvan scenery of the neighbourhood—people whose names are well known and highly respected in every intellectual centre in Europe and America—have come to occupy some of the picturesque houses that axe frequently to be rented in the district, have found that the fact of their names being honoured by all the rest of the world is no qualification for their admission to East Nethershire society. Intellectual or artistic eminence is really considered almost sufficient to disqualify a man or a woman from being admitted to East Nethershire society. On the other hand, if one of the ruling families should “ take up ” a new arrival, it is understood in East Nethershire that the position of that person is equivalent to that of St. Paul, whose “ taking up ” brought him into the highest Heaven; only it is believed in East Nethershire that society in Heaven is very mixed.

Nobody knew anything of Mrs. Thorburn when she first came to the neighbourhood, except that she was a widow and that she was a Canadian by birth; and being an exceedingly good-looking woman of possibly twenty-four or twenty-five years, she would not have had the remotest chance of being called on, except by the clergyman and his wife; for the exclusive society is careful to exclude from its privileges good-looking young women, especially when they are good-looking young widows. The moment that it was known, however, that this Mrs. Thorburn was acquainted with the Bromsgroves of Haughton Priory, all doors were flung open to her and she was entreated to enter.

But it seemed as if Mrs. Thorburn was herself inclined to be “ exclusive,” for certainly she did not show more haste than politeness suggested, in passing from the porches to the drawing-rooms of a good many of the people who had called upon her. But those who were admitted to intimacy with her were unanimous in asserting her claim—she never advanced it herself—to be considered a woman of great charm. Mothers began to be careful about their grown-up sons when they came within reach of her voice, and for some time even wives of long standing did not care overmuch that their husbands should remain hanging about her chair, either on the lawn of her own cottage, or on that of their own more imposing mansions. It did not seem as if she cared overmuch for their company; for certainly no one could say that the buskin of the huntress ever peeped out from the hem of her robe. She was naturally discreet; so that her discretion never became offensive, as does that of a good many women.

Before she had been two years in her cottage, she had come to be in the position of the Necessary Woman. People consulted her on many matters, and when more than one social crisis was hanging over the Churlington section of East Nethershire society, she had managed to avert it, and without offending the amour propre either of the Capulets or the Montagues.

It was quite well known that it was she who brought Mrs. Crosbie back to her husband; and the governess stayed on as well and admitted afterwards to Mrs. Thorburn that she had been engaged to Tom Singleton all the time.

But if no one had known anything of these feats of Mrs. Thorburn, a glimpse into her cottage would have told any moderately observant person what manner of woman she was. When she had taken it she had to face the ordeal of living in a house that had been known for several years as Lilac Lodge. It had been given this name by the lady from Streatham who had bought it on the death of her husband, in the year of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. They had had such a nice house at Streatham, she explained to the Rector’s wife, and, indeed, to quite a number of other people, and it had been called Lilac Lodge, for there really was a fine lilac that everyone admired, particularly on Sunday afternoons. The house was semi-detached, of course, and the one Siamese-Twinned to it was, it leaked out, known as The Laburnums, and not so inappropriately after all, she explained, for there had been at one time a laburnum in the garden at the back—the back looked out upon the grounds of a very fine house called The Cedars, very aptly too, she said, because the house was face to face with Chestnut Villa. It was with a view to transplant this nomenclature tradition to Nethershire that the lady had had “ Lilac Lodge ” painted on the simple piers of the little entrance-gate. For about a hundred and fifty years previously the place had been known as Drake’s Cottage; but this name had never been painted on the coping of the piers.

Mrs. Thorburn had laughed when the Bromsgroves had assumed that she would have the name painted out. Oh, dear no; she would like the name to remain, she said; it would help to remind her that there were other women in the world besides herself, and that was what every woman in the world had need to be reminded of every day of her life. So the name clung to the gateposts, and it is to be hoped that it fulfilled the mission assigned to it by Mrs. Thorburn. But Mrs. Bromsgrove said that she believed it would act as ungratefully toward its conservator as people did in stories toward those who had saved their lives.

Strangers passing along the narrow road, stopped to admire the beautiful old half-timbered cottage with that exquisite lawn, whose emerald gleamed like enamel through the spaces in the yew hedge, but lifted up their hands with exclamations when they read the name.

“ ‘ Lilac Lodge ’—oh, come on! Who would think that anyone having the guardianship of such a sundial could call the place Lilac Lodge? ” one stranger invariably said to another.

“ Some newcomer, no doubt, who took over the cottage, lawn and sundial, and then thought it a happy idea to call the place after the Clapham ideal,” said the other.

Mrs. Thorburn knew that people made these remarks; but she felt equal to bearing the burden laid upon her— of living down the ignominy of tenanting one of the many thousand Lilac Lodges to be found all over England.

She made her cottage a gem—just what Drake’s Cottage of 1760 should be. She had nothing but cottage furniture within its walls, and people who knew a right thing when they saw it lingered gratefully even in the kitchen. The little dining-room, with the original panels of oak, held a few of the smallest pieces of genuine Cromwellian furniture ever made, and some austere pewter on a dresser that had never been made for a kitchen. The drawing-room, also with the original panels, had become a double room by the removal of a lath and plaster partition, and it contained some good pieces of Chippendale and, between the two windows, a mirror designed by Sheraton and probably made by some artist while Sheraton was still living. The beautiful shapes of many pieces of Waterford cut-glass shone on tables and in corner cupboards. A large coloured engraving of Sir Joshua’s “Innocence” hung over the wooden mantelpiece.

The garden was the garden of a cottage, not of a mansion. It surrounded the emerald lawn with a blaze of herbaceous colour, and overflowed into a paddock. It was not the meretricious dazzle of a kaleidoscope, but the graduated colour scheme in the picture of a discriminating artist. Mrs. Thorburn was a true colourist. She made her pictures through the medium of her flowers.

And when Dr. Charwood stopped his motor at the gates of “ Lilac Lodge ” on that August afternoon, he looked over the yew hedge and felt refreshed, as most people do when they find themselves face to face with a beautiful picture.

“ It is like looking into a page of one of the painted missals at the Library in Bologna,” said he. “ Such a blending of colour! Harmony without end! Not the blatant harmony of a brass band; no, the subtleties of the C Minor Symphony done in colour. That is how you express yourself. How did you do it before you had a garden? ”

“ Without a garden I should have nothing to express,” said she, laughing. “ Among other incidents that I share with Eve is that of having been born in a garden.”

“ But unlike her—” he began, but stopped abruptly, looked at her and smiled.

“ Unlike her—” she repeated interrogatively.

He switched off his current, and the motor ceased to murmur.

“ That’s it,” said he with a nod. “ Unlike Eve, you haven’t been turned out of your paradise yet. Unlike Eve, you have made your own paradise; she had hers made for her.”

“ I should like someone to tell me if that is not the mistake that so many of her daughters are led into every day! They look for a ready-made paradise, instead of setting about making one for themselves.”

“ It seems to me that the mistake a good many of them make is in thinking more about making a paradise for someone else than for themselves,” said he.

“ That is not a mistake, if any of us ever succeed,” said she.

“ And man’s mistake—what is it, in this connection,

I should like to know? ”

“ I’ll tell you what it is. Man’s mistake is in looking for a paradise of a woman’s planting rather than God’s. Now, we shall have our tea in the garden and you shall have a chance of saying something trite about the serpent.”

“ And I shall say ‘ Retro me, Sathana,’ to the temptation, and refuse to do anything so obvious.”

“ The temptation? That’s your allusion to the serpent, for there can be no temptation without a tempter. Come along. You will find cushions in the porch.”

She led the way into the cottage and he carried out an armful of cushions to the Madeira chairs that stood in the half-shade of the feathery gold of a graceful deodar. Here was also a small tea-table.

He was alone in the place for some minutes, and that space he filled up with the most earnest thoughts that had ever occupied his mind—and heart.

Had the time come?—that was the question which he was trying to answer. He had asked himself that question more than once during the past two years; but somehow he had always felt that the time was not yet. He had either been uncertain about himself or not quite certain about her. Once he had said, “ Not yet,” when it had come to his knowledge that a man of wealth and position, such as he could never hope for, was asking himself the same question. It took him some time making up his mind to put himself to one side while the prospect of what was called “ a brilliant match ” was before her. The fact that he succeeded in doing so made him more certain of himself in relation to her than he had yet been. Then the other man got past whatever questions he may have put to himself and put one important one to her, and her answer to him left her still unbound by any promise, and Charwood was once more in the position from which he had magnanimously retired in favour of the man whom she had not favoured.

That had happened early in the year, and now it was August, and yet he was still uncertain if the time had come for him to tell her what was his aspiration. The fact was, that the conclusion of the incident of the advance and the retirement of the man of position and wealth had had its effect upon Philip Charwood. If he had been a younger man he would probably have seen his route clearly defined for him; he would most likely have made a quick and bold advance over the retiring vestiges of the other. “ Why should she have rejected him unless she is in love with me ? “ would be the question of a young man, with all the superb immodesty of youth in such circumstances. But Philip Charwood’s question was:

“ If she rejected such a man as Sir Laurence, a man of position and wealth, what chance would I have with her? ”

And this question seemed to him to be so logical—so reasonable—that, being trained to regard logic and reasonableness as the true guardians of a man’s destiny, he had allowed a lovely summer to go by without knowing what his destiny would be. He had been trained to think on a scientific basis, just as some rose trees are trained, by the aid of nails and the tender persuasiveness of cloth tabs, to assume a shape of rigid evenness, at which Nature, ever bent upon ramp and riot, mocks; and the result of his espalier treatment of his inclinations was that he looked for tidiness in his thoughts, and would not be satisfied until he had achieved it. He had a large stock of principles, which took the place of the galvanized nails of the rosarian’s tool-box, and quite a little store of experiences, which were the equivalent of the cloth shreds, and by their aid he succeeded in attaining to that precision of thought which is the ideal of the man of science. The gusts of passion and the breezes of emotion which had been sweeping over him since he had known Mrs. Thorburn, had threatened to disturb the framework of his rosery, but they had done no damage, only—

He was now standing in the shadow of the deodar on Mrs. Thorburn’s lawn, asking himself if his hour was at hand, or would it be wiser for him to assume that it was still some distance ahead. Would she feel that it was villainous—well, not quite villainous—indecorous would be the better word—would she feel that it was indecorous on his part to tell her that he loved her, when the sons of God were going forth to war with the sons of Belial? Would she feel that there was something selfish in his desire to be made happy just when that awful unhappiness had fallen upon the world? He and she had been talking eagerly all the afternoon upon a scheme for the relief of the sufferers—upon the possibility of having a hospital in their neighbourhood to receive, at any rate, some of the brave men who might return wounded from the fighting line. The woman’s heart was full of the project. And, if so, how trivial would his appeal sound in her ears at this time !

But if he were not to make his appeal to her at this time, when would he have another chance? ????

His many queries were interrupted by the coming of Mrs. Thorburn through the garden door of her drawingroom. She carried a plate and her maid followed with a tray.

CHAPTER XI

THEY had drifted back, while drinking their tea, to the beautiful possibilities of a hospital, and it appeared to him that there was a certain eagerness in her conversation this afternoon which had been absent from it when they had conversed during the day. She seemed to be frightened at every little pause that took place—frightened lest a fresh topic might be started by him. He actually fancied that there was a feverish note in her eagerness; and, moreover, she was not invariably successful in the relevancy of some of the remarks with which she had cut short some of the most interesting of the intervals in their conversation. Could it be possible, he thought, that she suspected that he was on the look-out for an opening to say all that he would have liked to say, but that he was uncertain about?

He was naturally a close observer of symptoms— his life was passed in looking out for symptoms, and now he found himself automatically awaiting confirmation of his diagnosis of her case; and it was only to be expected that the more nervous she became—he found distinct symptoms of feminine nervousness in what musical critics would term her attaque. Her tempo was a little feverish—a little too irregular.

And he was so busy noting her symptoms, he forgot to play the part of an attentive guest, and more than once failed to take up her beat, to adopt the phrase of the orchestra—-he allowed her to break in upon a cherished pause now and again, without making her new topic discharge the duty that she seemed to expect from it. So remiss was he. in fact, that after a while she noticed it and said, with a laugh that suggested a loss of patience:

“ You have become bored, my dear friend—bored— if not, certainly distrait. You have suddenly recollected something that you left undone, and you are thinking if it might not be wise to get at the end of a telephone before something happens. If I have kept you from your duty, I shall never forgive myself.”

He showed himself to be all that she said he was; for he was too distrait to reply to her at once, assuring her, in the language of the interested guest, that, so far from feeling bored, he had never been better entertained in his life. He looked at her vaguely for a few moments when she had spoken, and then turned his eyes away from her and focussed them upon an imaginary object between the gnomon of the sundial and a group of gnats that were dancing in the level rays of the sun.

She was clearly not prepared for such a pause as this. It was an absurd and disconcerting interval brought about by his failure to lapse into the conventional.

“ I should dearly like to know what you are thinking,” she said at last.

“ Would you? ” he cried quickly. He startled her.

“ No,” she said almost at once; convention had failed her also at a moment when she most needed its help.

” Ah, then I will tell you,” he said quietly.

She gave a little gasp. Her eyes closed, but only for a few seconds; then they were looking into his face with tenderness—the tenderness of sadness, he fancied.

“ What I have been thinking,” he said, “ is that this may be the last time for many days that we shall have a chance of sitting here together with the same freedom from responsibility. We have had many pleasant hours together in these chairs, have we not? ”

She smiled with something of sadness, the sadness of regret.

“ We have had nothing on our minds beyond the usual cares of our day,” he continued. “ But now the break has come. Every morning will bring to us news so appalling as will overwhelm all our individual interests, and it may be years before we recover from the strain. We shall have no time to give to our own plans of life. We shall be absorbed in the tremendous duties for which we have been trained, and if either of us were to step aside from that straight, hard road to which we have set our feet—if we were to allow ourselves to be free from care, even for an hour, we should think ourselves unworthy of our high vocation.”

He waited for her to assent. He thought he saw her lips move.

“ Yes, that is why I have been feeling for the past hour as if I was on the eve of parting from someone who was very dear to me,” said he. “ I feel myself thinking how pleasant has been the past, and then there comes the thought which I know comes to many people when standing by the bedside of a father or a mother— someone whom they love—the thought of wasted opportunities—of hours that were not appreciated to the full —of duty neglected until the ‘ too late ’ moment comes. I have been asking myself if the ‘ too late ’ moment has not gone by with me—if I should not have told you long ago what I may not have a chance of telling you ever, unless I do it now; but it may be that I was not sure of it before. I am sure of it now—I am sure now that I have been loving you ever since you came among us in this place—-I have been loving you, and now I feel that you are so dear to me that if I were to keep silent any longer I should never forgive myself.”

He had moved toward her; he had not put his hand out to her; but his eyes had not left her face, and he saw that her eyes were full of tears.

“ I only wish to open my heart to you this evening because, as I have said, we may find ourselves so absorbed in our work that any word of love would seem grossly out of place—you would resent it, I know, with the Red Cross on your arm; this may be my last opportunity for years, and I feel that if you were to promise to think of me as loving you, I could set about my work with joy, even though I should not get closer to you until the war has come to an end. That’s all I have to say, dear; and now I feel that I should have said it long ago.”

Still she made no move—spoke no word. But her tears were flowing without restraint, as she sat with her hands folded on her lap.

A blackbird among the laurels at the bottom of the garden was calling to another far away, as though the month were June instead of August. Its notes sounded like a belated love-story. A bee went booming past the chairs.

The silence became a burden.

“ My dearest, have you no word to give me? Why should you have tears? ” he asked, bending toward her where she sat.

Still a full minute elapsed before she said: no “ It is because I love you, and pity you.”

“ If you. love me, I am surely not to be pitied. If you love me, I am satisfied.”

“ I have a right to love you because—because—I love you,” said she. “ But I am not to be loved by you because—oh, I am a wretched woman—I have deceived everyone—I have deceived you! I am not a widow. My husband is still living.”

She had leaned forward to him and laid her hand upon his.

He looked at her for a long time. It seemed to her that he was doing his best to realize the import of what she had said. Perhaps he had turned his head away from her before he had quite succeeded.

“ I have been to blame—oh, only now I see how terribly I was to blame! ” she continued. “ I might have deceived everyone, but I had no right to deceive you. I loved you from the first moment we met. Is it shameless of me to confess it? I will not say that it is. Love is not something that is a part of ourselves; it is something that comes to us with no will on our part to receive it, and makes our hearts its home. What have we to say to such a matter? We cannot keep it out when it means to take possession of us. But I did not try. I was glad. I wanted nothing from it, only to cherish it. I thought that you were—what shall I call it?—safe? Yes, I thought that it was safe to love you, because you would never have time to think of loving me. You did not show that you had any thought of me for more than two years; but then I came to know that you had, and what happened? I was happy for the first time in my life, and I liked the experience. I would not give you up. I would not do anything that would tend to turn your love from me. Resolutions?— oh, I made plenty of resolutions —resolutions are the last resource of the irresolute. I resolved to leave the neighbourhood. I went so far as to go to the office of the agent to place the letting of the cottage in his hands; but when I returned from doing that I sat down and wrote him a letter to say that I had changed my mind. That was once. But I went further a few months later. I applied for the post of matron at an important hospital—ah, I know now that I did so only to satisfy my conscience—you have heard of people playing the hypocrite to their own consciences? I believed that I had no chance of getting the post, but it was a sop to my conscience to know that I had applied for it. I got that post, however, and had to telegraph that circumstances prevented my taking up the appointment. Weakness? —oh, yes; call it weakness ; strength of love must, of course, lead to a show of weakness. Nay, you know as well as I do that a woman is weak in proportion as her love is strong. That is why men love women who show themselves to be weak. I suppose that is how so many women lose their souls. . . . Oh, what in the name of heaven am I maundering about?—oh, more weakness! In a few minutes you will be feeling thankful for your escape from me.”

“ Oh, my poor darling! Spare yourself, I entreat of you! ” he cried. “ Spare me, I entreat of you. You know how I am suffering.”

“ That is what love means—suffering,” said she, not pityingly but passionately—in passionate protest against an injustice that has passed into law and must be submitted to whether it be protested against or accepted.

“I am getting to know what love means,” said he.

“ Every moment is adding to my knowledge. I knew nothing about it before this evening.”

“ And I knew nothing of it until I saw you,” she said; and it seemed to him that there was something like resentment in her tone. “ Oh, yes, I was married—I am still married. I was told that people who do not love before they marry nearly always do so afterwards. Some people may; but my experience is that there is no more complete annihilation of love than marriage. But then, I was not given a fair chance. I married a man in innocence—in hope—I did not love him; I came to hate him. But perhaps marriage was not wholly to blame for that: he made me hate him. I will not talk about him. I left him after my child was born and I have not seen him since, though I have heard about him. His name is well known in some parts of the world.”

“ My poor love! But surely you could have freed yourself from him—the law provides——”

“ The law gave me the privilege of separation; my parents were Catholics; they would not hear of my divorcing him, though I had sufficient grounds for getting a decree—separation was all that they allowed me to look for, and at that time I was so glad to get even that semblance of freedom that I agreed with them without another word. I thought that I had had enough of marriage to last me for the remainder of my life. I did not think that I should meet you. It was the Bromsgroves who told me that I should allow people to infer that I was a widow—that I need never think of settling down in an English county with the slur of separation attached to me. In England, as you know, a woman who has got a decree of separation from her husbanAd is looked at as askance as if itA were one of divorce, and in an English county the woman who divorces her husband is looked on as coldly as the woman who is divorced by her husband. But, as I say, I had full confidence in my own power to live my life without ever being guilty of such a piece of foolishness as to desire another experiment in the way of marriage. That is why I can tell you that until I met you, I knew nothing of what love meant. But now I have gained that knowledge; and what has it meant to me? It has so made me its slave that instead of discouraging you when I saw that you were inclined to be attracted to me, I did my best to bring you closer to me, though I held myself in contempt for doing so, and I have told you how I tried to effect a compromise with my conscience by pretending that I wanted to go away from every chance of seeing you; and now, when you were telling me that you loved me, instead of stopping you at once I allowed you to go on, feeling happier than I had ever done in all my life. O dear, dear love, if you could but know what hearing you speak of your love means to me, you would forgive me.”

“ Forgive you? Ah, if you could but know what your confession means to me, you would not talk about forgiveness. No one ever loved me—approached loving me before, and I never wanted anyone to do so. I waited for you, dear, and I have not waited in vain.”

There was a long pause. Her eyes were on his face; there was an eager question in them.

“You mean that we—you and I—you mean that we can live our life—that we can hold out our hands to be warmed by the fire which has been kindled—casting convention behind us? ” she said, in a whisper that had something of fear in it. Before he could make any reply to her, she had drawn her arms close to her they had been stretched along each side of her wicker-chair—and her hands were now clenched.

“ No, no,” she cried. “ It is impossible that you can think that I would do anything that would ruin your life. I know what your career means to you—I know what it means to me. I do not place any value upon myself—I should not shrink from any step that love might dictate if it only meant the sacrifice of myself— a poor sacrifice—no sacrifice at all I would account it, but I love you well enough to feel sure of myself in this, and I should as soon think of sacrificing my child as of jeopardizing your career. But you would not ask me, I know.”

“ Indeed I would not ask you,” said he. “ One of us said something about Paradise when I was looking over the hedge into this garden. I don’t know a great deal about Paradise as an abode, but I know what is a Fool’s Paradise, and I know the difference between the two. Loving you, my beloved, is not living in a Fool’s Paradise, and I shall not relinquish that, whatever may happen. If it is evil, I will turn to it and say, ‘ Evil, be thou my good.’ ”

“ And if loving you be evil, I will not merely say,

‘ Evil, be thou my good,’ but ‘ Evil, be thou my God,’ ” she whispered, and he saw the pallor of her face and the passionate interlocking of her fingers, as she bent forward toward him. “ And what shall be the end, God knows.”

“ God knows,” said he. “ This evening is the beginning of life to me, and I feel all the joy of living, without feeling the need to ask what the future will be. I think that I have acquired all the faith of childhood in the future. A child does not know that there is a limit to the future. Just as a man is most healthy when he has no reason to give a thought to his health, so a child is happy when it does not know that there is any future to think about.”

“ Blessed childhood! ” she murmured. “ Blessed faith! Blessed trust! How long do you believe that you will be satisfied with a life that holds you back from every thought of the future? Imprisoned in the present—imprisoned—the window of our cell is too high up—too near the sky for either of us to peer through, hoping to catch a passing sunbeam. Oh, my dear, will you not find this life as sunless as a prison cell? ’’

“ It may be a prison cell, but I shall always feel that I am sharing it with you,” said he. “ That will prevent it from ever seeming lonely.”

“ Ah, is that so, indeed? ” she asked, looking at him through half-closed eyes. “ Well, we can talk together and plan together a way of escape. There is no prison so fast as to defy the ingenuity of man to escape from its hold.”

“ Of man—and woman,” said he. “ But we will never waste our time making plans. Do you remember that lovely episode of the prison where Giant Despair had immured the poor pilgrims? ”

“ Christian and Hopeful? I remember the picture more clearly than the text.”

“ The text fascinated me as a child. I had pages by heart. ‘ I have a key in my bosom called Promise, which will, I am persuaded, open every lock in Doubting Castle,’ said Christian the Pilgrim. ‘ That’s good news, good brother,’ said Hopeful; and they were all right. I have that key in my bosom, my dearest, and so long as I am certain of it, I will not allow myself to be imprisoned by Despair.”

“ My dear Philip—I have called you ‘ Philip ’ often and often before now, though you never heard me— but indeed you were my Philip often when I sat in this very chair under the stars of the summer night—my dear Philip, you are a better man even than I thought you were. But for myself—oh, thank God, that I have work to do now. I want something that will absorb every thought—tax every energy to the uttermost.”

“ And you shall have it, believe me. For another year, at least, we shall have every hospital in England without a spare bed. We shall have palaces turned into hospitals. What will it be like ? I’ll tell you what it will be like. Within six months England will be like Egypt after the Tenth Plague; there will not be a house in which there is not one dead.”

They were now standing together beside the deodar.

“ And we shall be in the midst of it,” she said. “ Oh, my dear, how easy it will be for us to forget our trouble! How insignificant will seem all our affairs when we are face to face with that awful cataclysm! When we look back, if we ever do, shall we not appear to ourselves like people in the days of Noah who fell bitterly a wet summer when the deluge was impending? And yet I know how I shall feel when you go away just now, leaving me all alone.”

“ And I know how I shall feel when I go away from you.”

“ How shall you feel—that I have treated you badly in not being frank with you at first? ”

“ I shall feel as good Christian did when he remembered that he had a key in his bosom called ’ Promise.’ ”

“ But you have had no promise from me—you have asked for none.”

He laughed.

“ But I shall feel that I have had it, and that will be exactly the same as having it. These are probably the last words that I shall speak in your hearing under the conditions of our life as it is to-day. To-morrow, I shall most likely be talking in a language from which the word love, meaning the understanding between us, is rigidly excluded. But I know that we shall both set about the work that may be entrusted to us, feeling all the stronger for having been together this evening.”

“ I hope so. But if ever I look back——”

“ There can be no looking back for us: we have set our hands to the plough.”

“ Oh, you are good. You deserve better than for such a one as I to come into your life. But I will not mar it—there is my promise—ah 1 a paltry promise, but your life will not be marred by me.”

“ Marred? no; made, not marred.”

CHAPTER XII

AND yet, after all this, he actually felt happy—not comparatively happy, not happy all things considered, but positively happy; for the only reflection of which he was conscious took this form:

“ She loves me.”

And when he tried to bring his thoughts into the channel of consequences, he found no response save only that one which ignored all consequences.

“ She loves me.”

That thought took possession of him, and the glory and the glow of it so dazzled him that he was utterly unable to perceive how unsatisfactory was the setting of this jewel-thought.

He was conscious of a great relief. He had now and again tried to appreciate the feeling of a patient who had been fearing the worst, when after a careful examination, he had been able to say :

“There is not the slightest cause for alarm. If you submit to a certain course of treatment, you will be better than you ever were in six months.”

The expression of relief that he had noted on the face of the despairing patient when he had made his pronouncement suggested to him a tropical dawn after a black night. He knew how the sufferer almost instantaneously began to take a new view of life, ceasing to regard things of life merely as a looker-on—coming to think of everything from the standpoint of the participator.

And that was exactly how he was feeling as he drove away from that blessed Lilac Lodge. For many months he had been unable to give undivided attention to his work. He had found it impossible to be absorbed in even the most interesting of those problems of life or death which were brought before him; for ever and anon that personal question was being whispered to him :

“ Is it possible that she will love me.”

He had been full of remorse at the reflection that that purely personal problem should prevent his being completely absorbed by some of the much more important considerations that were presented to him daily. He had always taken the loftiest view of his profession. He even went so far as to fancy, now and again, in his more exalted moments, that the mission of a physician is comparable with that of the parson —that the healing of the suffering body involves quite as much self-sacrifice as the healing of the suffering soul, on the part of the respective administrators; and, therefore, as no parson has any interests outside those of his high calling, so no physician should let any private care thrust itself between him and his healing.

For many months then he felt that he had not been realizing his high ideal, and this being so, he had been impelled, in view of the strain which he knew would be laid upon him by his duties during the war, to put his fate to the touch, and learn the worst, or the best, that was in store for him. He felt that it would be quite impossible for him to face the most arduous work of his life, so long as those questions were liable to be whispered to his ear “ Does she love me?—Will she ever love me? ”

Well, now he had learned the best or the worst, and he felt all the gladness that comes from the relief of an intolerable suspense. He could face anything now. He would never be affected by doubt or afflicted by remorse: she loved him—the matter was settled for ever. He need never give it another thought. The fact had entered his life—become part of his life. His confidence was as simple as the faith of Pippa:

“ God’s in His heaven,
All’s well with the world.”

Florence Thorburn loved him, and nothing else mattered.

Thus it was that he drove through the by-ways of the lovely villages that lay between her home and his, on this exquisite summer evening, feeling as if, in the midst of a frantic war, a great peace had come upon the world.

It never occurred to him that his position was one that should make him feel hopeless rather than confident, melancholy rather than exultant.

She had told him that she loved him, and had been loving him for months, but that she had no right to do so, the fact being that she had a husband already. Honourable people do not—or at any rate, should not —make confession of love to each other unless they have marriage before their eyes. When a man tells a woman that he loves her, and asks her if she can return his love, it is understood by both of them that he is asking her if she will marry him. But Florence Thorburn had listened to his confession and had made hers in return—only with a good deal more of vehemence than had been on his side; but for the ordinary lovers of Lilac Lodges her response would have been rather more than unsatisfactory; it would have been on the verge of the shocking—it would have been a signpost to Despair; for it swept away in a moment all consideration of marriage. What does a confession of love amount to when it is followed by an announcement that there exists an insurmountable barrier to Marriage?

But there he was, having heard such an announcement, and yet feeling quite satisfied—more than satisfied—exultant.

The fact was that he had not been able to realize fully, in all its bearings, the double confession of Florence Thorburn. The certainty that she loved him and that she never would love anyone else—ah, this last was really the source of his supreme satisfaction, though he did not know it—was enough for him to dwell upon for some time to come. He knew that, in any case, a good deal of time was to pass before he would have a chance to sit down and consider exactly how he stood in relation to Mrs. Thorburn; and he had long ago acquired the happy procrastination of the lover in considering consequences, especially consequences that promise to be disagreeable. At the best he could never have hoped to marry Florence Thorburn before their work should be ended with the ending of the war. He had known this; all that he had looked for when he had been with her this evening was the relieving of his suspense in regard to her feeling for him. If she had told him that she found it impossible to give him her promise, he would have thrown himself into his work at his hospital with all the zest that the philosophic bearing of a great disappointment makes imperative. He would be able to say:

“ Thank God, I have still my work to do! ”

But if she had acknowledged that she loved him, without adding that confession that she had a husband already, he would still have said:

“ Thank God, I have still my work to do,” and have entered upon his work with all the zest that is due to an anticipation of happiness.

In either case, his work would have to be done; and he had not had time to appreciate the doom in her revelation of that which was an obstacle to their marriage, but not apparently to their love. He was, consequently, happy in the thought that she loved him, and—this was important—she would never love another man. If she did not marry him, she would marry no one else.

He had the sweetest sleep for months that night; and in the morning he got his summons from his old friend of the South African Ambulance, to meet him in London to discuss the organization of the hospitals in view of;the awful contingencies of the next months. Months? How many months? How many years?

But he had much to do before setting out for London. Colonel Lullington’s nurses had, of course, telephoned to him. He grudged the time that he would have to spend on this hopeless visit. He knew that it was now merely a matter of days with poor Colonel Lullington; but he had to go to his bedside and say something about a change in his diet. He had also three other calls to make.

An extra call which was not in his diary was to Mark Rowland. He had been wondering if he had not been too definite with Mark Rowland. He had not the least doubt that if Mark had presented himself to any medical man of average skill and experience, with a view of being passed into the Army, he should be rejected. He was pretty sure, moreover, that if Mark were by any chance to get through the medical examination and be sent on duty with the great army which, it was rumoured, was to go to fight in some direction, he should be dead within a month, or if not actually dead, made a permanent invalid of; but he thought it possible that by his submitting to a course of treatment, with gradually increasing daily exercise, he might within six or eight months, certainly before there was any likelihood of the war being over, be able to occupy some post in a Home Defence Corps; and he might think even so small a mercy something to be thankful for.

He drove to Lady Barston’s, on his way to Colonel Lullington, with a view to make his explanation and suggestion to Mark.

He found Mark at home, but not in the garden or about the stables, where he was usually to be found. He was in a room at the back of the house which, having been used by the original owner as a secure place for an after-breakfast doze, was naturally called the library. Although for several years it had not contained books, it was still very well adapted, either for an after-breakfast or an after-luncheon doze— post-prandial was the adjective applied to it by the novelists of old time. It was the room that none of the servants thought of going to when an undesirable visitor called upon urgent business, such as collecting for the fund for the immediate conversion of the Jews, or to sign a petition to have the speed limit of eight miles an hour made compulsory.

Dr. Charwood, hearing that Mr. Rowland was nowhere to be found in the house, took it upon him to penetrate to this apartment without consulting the domestic staff.

“ When I was told that you were not in the house, I knew where to look for you,” said the Doctor. “ Don’t forget that you gave me the freedom of the passage to this room long ago.”

“ I don’t,” said Mark. “ I’m not accusing you of any act of intrusion. I’m only accusing you of kindness—doctor’s kindness—in ferreting me out.”

“ That’s all right,” said the Doctor. “ I don’t mind that in the least. The fact is that while I was running across to Lullington yesterday, I began to feel that maybe I had been too abrupt with you. I think I should like to have my opinion submitted to a specialist. I named Elkin of Brunton to you. It would relieve my mind greatly if you would allow him to look at you.”

“ What, again? ” cried Mark.

“ Again? ”

“ Again. I went to him yesterday—straight to him after leaving you.”

“ You lost no time. I hope he——”

“ Now, mind what you’re about, Charwood: you were about to say you hope that he confirmed your diagnosis.”

” If he didn’t, he was wrong, in spite of his reputation. But tell me what he did say.”

“ He said almost word for word what you had said a few hours earlier. I should confess that when I left you I hadn’t the remotest idea of going to him, or to Brunton, or anywhere except to the devil. But driving nowhere, I found myself waiting for the train to pass at the level crossing at East Brunton, and I thought I might as well see Elkin, and get it over.

Clever chap, Elkin, I’m sure—probably makes his six thousand a year.”

“ About half that. But we’ll let the question of his income slide. What I want to say just now is that you must take a reasonable and a practical view of your trouble, Rowland. Of course, it’s rotten luck being thrown out like this at the present moment; but there’s no one who will suggest that you are to blame for it.”

“You mean to say that there’s no one who will accuse me of showing the white feather? ”

“ That’s just what I mean. You see——”

“I see everything and I hear everything, my dear chap. I hear people whispering, ‘ Heart disease? oh, yes; it’s very prevalent during a war—quite an epidemic—wonderful how quickly it develops at war time.’ I hear them, I hear them.’’

He had risen from his chair, giving it a kick away from him, and began pacing the room.

“ People know you too well, Rowland, to talk that way.”

“ And I know people too well not to be sure that they will talk that way. ’ Very convenient complaint, heart disease—with men it is found almost as convenient as headache is with women. Women excuse themselves from going to church on the one plea and men from going to the war on the other.“ Oh, yes, I hear people talk.”

“ I wish I may hear a single whisper. If I do——”

“ Now that’s what I would implore of you not to do—’’

“ Not to do what? ”

“ What you were about to say you would do. No, Charwood; I’m not going to have you or anyone else making excuses for me. Just at this moment the French epigram, ‘ Qui s’excuse s’accuse,’ is particularly appropriate. I will not have you telling people, ‘ The day after the war broke out Rowland came to me, asking me to examine him in order to find out if there were any grounds on which he could be excused from serving, and I’m happy that I was able to oblige him. Weak heart—fatty heart—ossified heart— dilated heart—rotten heart, any sort of old heart you dam please.’ ”

“ Look here, Rowland, let me tell you that you’re inclined to make a fool of yourself.”

“ And let me tell you that you’re inclined to make a fool of me, Charwood. Everybody knows how easy it is to get a medical certificate excusing anybody from anything. I believe that some professional men have them already typewritten and signed, and all that an applicant has to do is to stroke off the things that he’s not suffering from. There’s the list like an hotel bill with all the items printed in rows—‘ weak heart ’ at the head of them—‘ Weak Heart ’—‘ Varicose Veins ’—‘ Epileptic Fits ‘ Softening of the Brain,’ and so on. Some distinguished bankrupts get them by the dozen and so excuse their attendance at the Court. The Court accepts them, but everyone knows that the Court has its tongue in its cheek all the time. Everyone else laughs at them.”

“ I don’t think that there’s much good to come of my remaining here for you to gibe at.”

Charwood picked up his cap and rose.

“ I beg your pardon, my dear Charwood,” cried Mark, laying his hand on the other’s arm. “ I know I’m talking wildly—like the bounder that I am. But you know what’s the matter with me, and you’ll forgive me.”

“ You may be sure of that,’’ said the Doctor. “ I know how you feel, and I sympathize with you ; but not so much as I would if I were not sure that you will be in a fit condition to serve long before this racket is over. You’ve only to do what you’re told for six or eight months and you’ll be as fit as you ever were.”

“ Six or eight months? Where will the war be in six or eight months, I should like to know,” said Mark. “ It will be beginning then,” said Charwood.

“ I don’t know whether to look on you as an optimist or a pessimist. You mean me to be encouraged to hope that the Germans will hold out for six or eight months until I can have a rap at them, when, of course, their collapse will be a mere matter of time.”

“ I mean that if you look after yourself and begin by ceasing to worry about not being able to get into the firing line all at once, you’ll have as much fighting later on as will serve you for the rest of your life. The next six months will be the worst half-year you will ever know; but you’ve got to face it, and there you are.”

There was a long pause before Mark said:

“ It was very decent of you to come to me to-day, Charwood. Now, though I’ve jabbered away like that boundless bounder, the Kaiser, yet I’m not quite a fool. I’ve got to bear whatever may come upon me, and not prove myself a real shirker by shirking this—this —what do they call it ?—this burden that’s laid upon me. When I left Brunton yesterday, I ran on to Wadminster, and sat for an hour in the cloisters. ... I think I can hold out—I’ve made up my mind to hold out. I may not be particularly patient at all times, but I’ve a good jawful of teeth, and they’ll stand a lot of grinding before they’re worn down to the gums.

All that I’ll ask of you is not to go about making excuses for me. Above all things, don’t let anyone know the truth. I give you my word that I should rather that people called me a shirker than an invalid. Can you take that in, Charwood? ”

“ I have a hazy glimpse of what’s weighing on your mind. You have a fancy that people who don’t know you will think that you’re on a level with the shuffling bankrupt, who keeps off the evil day by the adventitious aid of a medical certificate? ”

“ That’s just it. If I had only come to you a month ago, I shouldn’t mind now; but the very day it was known that every man in England who was fit for service would be called on to show what he was worth —for it to be announced that on that very day a chap who had never shown a sign of weakness—a chap who had played in good second-class cricket through the summer—is there anyone in this part of the county who will not put his tongue in his cheek and wink the other eye when you begin to make excuses for me? I said his tongue, but there are hers.”

“ My dear chap, girls do not put their tongues in their cheeks.”

“ No, they don’t; but occasionally they use them so as to make one wish they did. I have heard some of them chatter about me.”

“ It’s melancholy, isn’t it, that a chap who gets one girl to love him gets a score to hate him for it. But —what about Miss Inman—you will at least tell her the truth? ”

Mark, who had resumed his chair, leant forward until his chin was cupped in the palm of his right hand, his elbow resting on one knee. His legs were crossed. He did not reply for some moments, but then he said:

“I’ve been thinking about her, Charwood. I will not tell her. I will not have her told.”

“ You amaze me,” said Charwood. “ I can appreciate—to a certain extent—your attitude in regard to the general run of people, but it’s quite another matter in regard to a fiancee. I tell you plainly, Rowland, that I believe you would be making a great mistake to keep your condition from her? ”

“ How so? Don’t you think that it would be something like putting her belief in me to the test? ”

“ It would be doing that with a vengeance. It would be putting her faith in you to quite an unwarrantable test—a test, moreover, that she would have every right to resent. You talk of its being a trial of her belief in you; but wouldn’t she have a right to think that your keeping the truth from her was a proof that you didn’t think you could trust her with your secret? ”

“ I assure you, Charwood, I have been thinking over this business from every standpoint,” said Mark. “ And I’ve made up my mind that Angela Inman shall have her chance.”

“ Her chance? ”

“ Her chance of throwing me over. I feel that I asked her to marry me under false pretences. She did not know that I had a heart.”

“ She will know now that you haven’t one if you don’t trust her with your secret.”

“ I tell you I feel that I have no right to keep her to her promise; she did not know that she was promising to marry a man with a disease of the heart that incapacitates him from taking his place alongside other men when the nation is calling on them to quit themselves like men. She did not know that she was engaging herself to a crock.”

“ That’s the rottenest rubbish I Haven’t I given you my word that in six or eight months——”

“ She didn’t engage herself to what I may be in six or eight months. I tell you, Charwood, that I should feel easier in my conscience if she were to throw me over on the suspicion that I was shirking my duty.” “ And you’d richly deserve such a fate. If she throws you over for a shirker, it will be because you have shown yourself to be one. It is your plain duty to tell Miss Inman what you have found out about yourself, and that duty you are shirking in what I must call a cowardly way.”

“ You may call it what you please. I can’t quarrel with you on this account. You have a right to your opinion, and I can still hold to mine. We look at this matter from different standpoints.”

“ We certainly do. But I’ll say no more. You know that I can keep my mouth closed at all times and to all people. Neither Miss Inman nor anyone else shall ever learn from me anything that I know about you. And if she throws you over, all that I can say is, that you have richly deserved it. I’ll most likely see her to-day when I go to Colonel Lullington; she is with him. You will send her no message? ’’

“ I have none to send.”

“ She will be disappointed.”

Mark smiled gravely and shook his head.

“ Oh! ” said Dr. Charwood, and after a little time he too smiled. But he went out of the room very gravely.

CHAPTER XIII

WAS it the fear of what people would say if they remained at home that sent thousands and hundreds of thousands of men to join the army? Was it love of their native land? Was it the lust of fighting? Was it the chance they had of doing heroic deeds that would be talked about in the streets, celebrated in ephemeral song and immortalized in the pages of history?

Mark Rowland employed his unaccustomed leisure trying to answer these questions. But how could there be any question as to the impulse that was animating the nation? It is through warfare that a nation finds its soul. It may have been groping about for it for years before, and failing to find it, getting along very cheerfully without it, making money and taking money in exchange for its soul; but with the menace of war its soul is achieved, and the search for the soul is called Patriotism.

England was alive with the passion of patriotism during the first month of the war. Several months had passed before a judge, sitting in his High Court, began one morning exchanging opinions with members of the Inner Bar as to the identity of the person who had said that patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel. The Inner Bar suggested Disraeli, and the judge, learned in the law, but deplorably ignorant on the subject of literature, could not advance further toward the solution of this mystery of authorship. But he shook his head, and said that he did not think Disraeli was the author; and no one in the Court—unless perhaps the usher, who, apart from his own injunctions about the Book and the witness’s right hand, is not allowed to speak —was able to swing aside the curtain that hangs athwart the magic portals of literature, and allow those earnest aspirants after knowledge a glimpse of the awful figure in the central niche in the temple beyond, who had given a definition of patriotism, and had spent his life defining things.

Patriotism. Mark felt that morning that he would be ready to give all he possessed to have a chance of striking a blow at the enemies of his country. He could not imagine a worse fate befalling any man able and willing to fight for his country, than to have people —strangers as well as neighbours—pointing to him, living as usual at home, when there was fighting to be done and when the fate of his country—the fate of Freedom herself—the fate of Civilization itself—the fate of the Future of Mankind was being decided, as men have always decided such issues, by the sword.

And he was the wretch who would have to occupy the ignominious position of the man who stays at home.

He felt like a man who has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment for some very ignoble crime. He felt that the shame of his position would cling to him for the rest of his life. He would never be able to shake it off. People would look at him in amazement at first, and then—then they would cease to look at him. He would be isolated to the end of his days. The finger of scorn, that played so important a part in the gestures of derision of long ago, has been sheathed in a glove for many years, but all the fingers in the glove point at the wretch against whom the obloquy of the world, or the parish, is directed; and Mark knew how it would be in his case if he were to allow the seal to be put upon his shame in the eyes of his world, in the form of a medical certificate dated two days after war had been declared. He knew that the shirker who shirks boldly is accounted a braver man than the one who waves the white flag of a medical certificate above his head.

But Mark Rowland’s gloomy anticipations of the pointing of the fingers of scorn did not go within measurable distance of what took place in England during the next months of the war, when pert shop-girls insulted respectable men in the streets by offering them white feathers —when respectable elderly spinsters insulted young men who had made a sacrifice of their lives in order to keep mothers and sisters out of the workhouse—young men who had been starving themselves in humble situations in order that younger brothers might be educated. Under the intolerable goad of the women, whose patriotism took the form of urging other people into sacrifices which they themselves had no mind to make, men closed down businesses which they had laboured for years to establish, and not only ruined themselves to gratify the patriotism of a few officious females, but sent to the workhouse those elderly skilled workmen who had been earning their five pounds a week at a specialized trade, and sent to a deeper depth than the workhouse the typists and the “ folders ” and the packers associated with the discarded industry. Patriotic women —mostly past the desirable age—affirmed in public that girls should feel it a disgrace to be seen talking to a man who was not wearing khaki, and patriotic rhymesters addressed their taunting indiscriminate doggerel to men who had not enlisted, insisting on their sweethearts cutting them dead. Coroners’ inquests gave proof of good men goaded to suicide by patriotic persecution of this stamp. But nearly a year had passed before the authorities discovered that indiscriminate patriotism had thrust out of England thousands of men whose skill as munition workers was the country’s most valuable asset. So much for the pert shop-girls and the doggerel rhymesters!

Patriotism took many queer shapes in those days; but in spite of it all, the army of the Empire grew and grew —within a week it had outgrown the Empire’s supply of rifles, and within another week it had outgrown the Empire’s supply of khaki; and it kept on growing and growing beyond the power of the Empire to do anything with it. It became an army that subsisted only on its own patriotism.

But Mark Rowland foresaw nothing of all this. He only foresaw the looks on the faces of the people about him, who would see him at home when all his friends were going forth to fight, and he felt that the next six months —six months had been the minimum of Charwood, but Elkin, the specialist, had hinted at eighteen and had even mentioned a couple of years—would be the worst of his life.

The doctor had scarcely left him before he got a letter from Angela Inman. It was not exactly a letter to say good-bye to him and wish him Godspeed, but it might almost have been read as such. It assumed that he was busying himself about rejoining his regiment and being hurried of! to fight at any moment, he might have no time to say farewell to her. She had been compelled to hasten away from her home to the deathbed of her godfather, and she wrote from his room, she said. She did not ask Mark to come to her, she did not even ask for a letter telling her of his plans: she knew how fully occupied he would be, and what was he to say to her that she did not know already? She knew what she was to him, because she knew what he was to her. Their country was going through the most awful period of her existence, and they were going to share her anxiety as they would certainly share her glory. England was going to free the world from the menace of slavery—the slavery of the sword—and they would share in the glory of her work.

That was the substance of her letter. It was scrawled at a strange desk and it bore every token of having been broken in on at intervals, by attendance upon the man who was dying beside her. But the devotion of a true love was in every line of it, and that was why he held it for nearly an hour, sitting in his chair, and scanning every word that it contained.

He covered his face with his hands and groaned when he had read it for the fourth time. How was he to go to such a girl and tell her that he had changed his plans— that he was not applying for service with his old regiment or with any other? How was he to do it?

Of course, he had to meet his sister at the lunch tabic, and to listen to her chatter—that was to be part of the burden laid upon him. Lady Barston had been at Churlington and she had never known the place to be so crowded, she said. Oh, she had met everyone, except Angela. Angela had gone to poor Colonel Lullington, and no one believed that he would live through the week. He had always been devoted to Angela, and Mrs. Morrison had said that the reason of it was that he had been devoted to Angela’s mother before she had married Angela’s father; so that the likelihood was that he would leave a good deal of his money to his god-daughter.

“ Of course, if Mrs. Morrison’s story is true, it would account for a good deal,’’ said Cecile. “ Nobody takes godfathers seriously nowadays. They are mere forms, like, ‘ Who giveth this woman to be married to this man? ’ Everybody knows that in an emergency the verger is ready to give any woman to be married to any man. And the clergyman winks at it. Nobody pays any attention to the duties of a godfather or a godmother. Fancy Colonel Lullington promising and vowing that anyone should renounce the pomps and vanities of this world! ”

“ I do. Isn’t he about to renounce them all himself before the end of the week? ” said Mark.

“ Don’t mock at religion, Mark,” said Cecile very gravely. “ I never do; the principle of godfathers and godmothers and things of that sort is sound, even though it would be funny to think of Colonel Lullington teaching Angela her catechism. But he certainly made her handsome presents every year. I wonder that he never married her mother when Mr. Inman died.”

“ Wouldn’t that have been within the prohibited area—‘ A man may not marry the mother of his godchild ’—oh, maybe, after all, it’s only Ollendorff,” suggested Mark.

“ That’s nonsense. A man may even marry his deceased wife’s sister nowadays,” said Lady Barston. “ The only one that’s excluded is the sister of his widow—a man may not marry her, somebody told me at a dinner-party when they were talking over the degrees of relationship.”

“ I don’t believe that a man ever seriously proposed to do such a thing,” said Mark.

“ Don’t be too sure; you never can tell nowadays. Look at the case of young Wilford. Didn’t he marry Lady Luxmore, though she was old enough to be his mother, and when he had another chance, didn’t he marry someone who was older still? ”

“ There’s something in that.”

“ I met General Drawbridge and about a score of other men. He is in great delight. He got an intimation from a friend who is high up in the War Office that he is likely to be employed before long. And Colonel Colvin, he was quite excited. He telegraphed reminding someone in authority that he had once bought him a polo pony that turned out well, so he hopes to be made a remount officer. They were asking about you—if you were going back to the Yeomanry, or what.”

“ And what reply did you make? ”

“ What reply could I make? I’ve asked you a dozen times what you intended doing, and you’ve never told me anything. You know you must make up your mind at once.”

“ Must I indeed? I don’t think that there’s any need to be in a particular hurry about it. There’s such a thing as indecent haste, isn’t there, Cecile? ”

His sister stared at him.

“ What on earth can you mean? If anyone else were to talk in that fashion, I would say that he was trying to get out of it—I would really,” she cried.

“ Trying to get out of what? ” he asked.

“ To get out of the responsibility of going to the front. People would say that you were shilly-shallying.”

“ But, of course, with me that would be out of the question. Would anyone, who knows me, accuse me of having cold feet? ”

“ Anyone who knows you? But the General said to- day that it is only a war that shows what a man really is. It was about Teddy Powell—he went off last night to join something. Everybody thought Teddy was fit for nothing but writing poetry and that sort of thing— they published something of his in Country Lije that I could make neither head nor tail of; but off he went. I think he has a distant connection with some Welsh regiment—so the General said.”

“ Just so. And that was how he came to make his remark about a war showing a man in his true colours? ” ‘‘Yes. He said, ’ Who on earth would have fancied that Teddy had it in him? ’ I agreed with him. But I really felt something of a fool when I couldn’t say what you were doing. What do you intend doing, Mark? ”

“ I haven’t made up my mind yet. The General was right. There’s nothing like a war for showing a chap up, and I feel that I’m being shown up as a chap who will never do anything to-day that he can possibly put off till to-morrow.”

“ What? And I have always been holding you up as a man that makes up his mind about a thing in a moment, and believes himself to be right ever after. Do you remember about the Myddletons’ dinner-party? ”

“ I remember; but anyone could see with half an eye that the man was not the right sort.”

“ Not everyone. Fourteen accepted out of the twenty they invited. But you said at once that you’d see them hanged first.”

“ But, after all, Mr. Myddleton only got eighteen months in the second division. How the mischief do we come to be talking about that old scandal? ”

“ I really forget—oh, yes; I was holding it up as an instance of your quickness in deciding. And yet now you say that you’re inclined to procrastinate. What am I to say to people who ask me about you—I must say something, you know? ”

“ Je ne vois pas la necessité my dear Cecile, though I suppose you do. Well, you just tell those anxious inquirers that I’m so anxious that the other chaps should have a chance I’m holding back for fear there shouldn’t be room enough for us all.”

He saw her raise her head with a little start and a flush passed over her face—it might have been a flush of indignation.

“ I think that if I were to try to say that to anyone like General Drawbridge, he would believe that I should have done well to stop before coming to the last part of your explanation.”

“You mean—”

“ I mean that I need only say that you’re holding back for fear—through fear.”

He was amazed at her quickness. Clearly the war was bringing out unsuspected qualities in her as well as in others. He felt himself flushing just as she had flushed before making her last remark.

There was a long pause before he said:

“ Very well; you just tell anyone who is so interested in my movements as to put the question to you, that I am refraining from joining anything because I’m afraid of the Germans. Just say that, and let me know what they say then. By the way, these are the best nectarines we’ve had for years.”

“Yes, they’ve ripened quickly. Only a few days ago they were as hard as bullets.”

“ Thank heaven, they weren’t offered to me. Bullets! I would have had a fit. No thanks; no coffee for me to-day.”

He had gone from the table with an abruptness that startled her. She was becoming more impressed every moment with the sagacity of General Drawbridge’s remark. Like so many English women, occupying a similar position, she had always taken the courage of her men folk for granted. It had never occurred to her to doubt her father, or her brother, or her husband. She had always supposed that they would do whatever they had to do without taking into account the risk of danger. They would not think of pausing in any job they had undertaken because of the element of danger—nay, she was certain that they would attack it the more eagerly if it was risky. But here she had been listening to the lamest excuse possible to imagine for her brother’s inaction at a moment when every man about her was burning to get into the thick of the fray!

She was more than surprised. She was on the border of being shocked, and to be shocked would be to be shamed.

When she met Mark at dinner that night she felt as if she were in the company of a stranger, and he felt that that was her feeling. The note of constraint in their exchange of remarks was very marked. Alice, the parlourmaid, thought that they had been quarrelling; but when she mentioned her suspicion to the cook at their supper, the cook smiled at the naivete of her diagnosis.

“ Laura Mercy! you’re a simple one, are you? ” she said. “ They ain’t ’usban’ an’ wife. Don’t you know enough to know that it’s only ’usban’ an’ wife what has tiffs together that makes them ’orty like to each other over the table? Brothers and sisters don’t never quar’l, my dear—leastways not afore their father’s will has been read out. That’s when they begin.”

“ Well, if there ain’t a proper quar’l between them there’s a proper tiff,” said the parlourmaid. “ And not a word about the war passed from one to other. What’s Mr. Rowland going to do about the war anyway? It puts me in a regular hole, it does, to be asked by everyone that I meet, whether at the front or back, what he’s going to do, and me not able to say one way or other.”

“ It’s ’ardly fair to us, it’s not,” said the cook gravely. “ It places us in a nawkard position, as the sayin’ is. It’s us as has give our dearest and best to fight for King and Country, but what’s left for us to say, if them above us fails us in a hower’s need, as the sayin’ is? But you may take my word for it, my dear, Mr. Rowland won’t never fail ’is King and Country, oh, not ’e, not ’e; ’e ain’t pro-Boer, if I know anythink o’ gentlemen.”

“ If so be he shows the least little bit of the feather —no bigger nor the fluff from an eider-down, I give my lady a month,” said the parlourmaid. “ If it was known that I was in a place where there was pro-Boer principles held, I might have trouble in getting into a good house.”

“ Oh, don’t talk wild-like like that,” said the cook. “ The idee of a good parlour being out of a place for a single week! You might as well say that a good cook —ay, or a bad ’un for that matter, as the sayin’ is— bein’ out of a job! Go ’long with your nonsense! ”

The housemaid went along as she was told, but not before she had replied to the reassuring words with a doubtful, though scarcely a derisive:

“ Well, I don’t know.”

CHAPTER XIV

THAT was the state of things existing in the house hold at the close of the second day of the war. Mark did not, of course, know exactly the form that the criticism of his attitude would take in the servants’ hall, but he knew that his sister’s bearing in regard to himself would not relax as the days went by and all the men of their acquaintance went off, leaving him stranded and under a cloud of suspicion, if not of actual obloquy.

How would it be possible for him to hold out against public opinion when it came to express itself in the most virulent form that public opinion can assume, which is silence? He felt that he could bear up against active jeers, definite abuse, sardonic sneers; but when the ignominy of silence was offered to him, he felt that he could not endure it and live.

But how was he to help himself? His instinct made him certain that if it were announced that he was suffering from a dilated heart—that he had begun to suffer from it on the very day that war had been declared, he would be held in even greater contempt than if he were simply to refrain from making any move to serve in the army. He knew with what contempt he had heard of medical certificates being brought forward to excuse the attendance of a fraudulent bankrupt before his creditors, or the act of a man who had bashed in his wife’s head, when he is being tried by a judge and jury.

To be sure, he might present himself before a medical board when trying to get a commission, or even to enlist as a trooper, and he would then be able to say that he had done his best to follow the example of his friends who had joined; but he shrank from the stigma of rejection through being medically unfit, quite as much as he did from the criticism of those who would call him by that word newly invented to suit the exigencies of the situation, a shirker.

What was he to do?

He knew that what he had to do was simply to bear the burden that had been laid upon him. That knowledge had come to him during the hour he had passed in the cloisters of Wadminster. Who was he that he could claim to be exempt from the burden of the Despised and Rejected?

He would bear his burden, even though every day should but add to its weight. If he should not find himself strong enough of himself to bear it, were there not cloisters to which he could flee—a sanctuary in the midst of which there flowed a fountain of strength for the healing of the nations? Could he not go thither, in the certainty of being sustained—upheld in the face of ignominy—upheld against his own rebellion at the decree of the Power in whom he believed, and believing, trusted.

The house was silent an hour before midnight. He had gone immediately after dinner to the room which he had occupied through the day, and from which he stole forth now into the warm night of summer scents and summer stars. He was about to start on that course of treatment of his malady that the doctors had told him he must follow if he hoped to get the better of it. He was to set his heart as much work as it could do every day, gradually increasing its exercise until it should become normal. But he must not approach any point of violence. He must not subject his heart to any strain. As soon as he felt that he was approaching the straining-point, he was to cease his exercise.

There was no better form of exercise than walking, he had been told, and to avoid meeting his questioning friends, he knew that he would have to carry out his cure by night. He felt that he was slinking out of the house—he might have been a burglar setting out on his nocturnal depredations, or a worse type of scoundrel to keep an assignation that would mean ruin to innocence. He had never done anything underhand in his life; he had never done anything that would not bear the light of day; but now as he went softly out of the house by the French window leading into the garden, so that no one upstairs should hear the sound of the front door closing behind him, he found himself pausing and glancing over his shoulder as he turned the handle and it made a slight sound. He would have been ready with his excuses: why shouldn’t he go out to the garden to smoke before turning in to bed? He had done so frequently during the lovely summer ; and yet he was startled by the grating of the latch.

And he had the miscreant’s instinct to avoid the King’s highway. For two hours he walked through the lovely lanes that are the chief feature of East Nethershire and the despair of stranger motorists. He was tired before he had covered a single mile— tired and almost gasping. He wondered how he could ever have fancied that this sensation of exhaustion which he had experienced during the summer was merely the result of his failing to keep himself fit. If he had only told Charwood about it a month earlier, what a difference it would have made to him! It would not then have been open to anyone to say what he knew everyone would say now, were he to lament his ill-luck at having a medical certificate forced upon him the day after the declaration of war. He was so obsessed by the thought of what the effect of this coincidence would be upon the people who should hear of it, that he felt quite impatient with the doctor for failing to appreciate its gravity. No, the doctor showed that he was far from attaching any importance to his scruples in this direction. In the eyes of the doctor a certificate of “ medical unfitness ” was a sacred document, the good faith of which would never be questioned by any sane person like a police-court magistrate or the Registrar of the Court of Bankruptcy.

And no one could have persuaded Mark Rowland that his sensitiveness was morbid—that it was a disease and that its suggestions were on a level with those of delirium. He had never thought of himself as being morbidly sensitive; he had never before shown himself to be so, for the simple reason that his vulnerable point had never before been touched. The Moor of Venice had never thought of himself as cursed with jealousy until he had become obsessed with his love for Desdemona, and then, although a moment’s consideration would have assured him that he had no reason for his suspicion, he became its victim.

Mark went manfully through his two hours’ trudge, and then, returning with dragging feet to his home, he went to bed; and though he was too fatigued to go to sleep until more than an hour had passed, he awoke refreshed, feeling that he had at least taken one step toward that recovery which his two advisers had assured him would follow his adherence to their instruction.

And when he read the newspapers, with their account of the outrage upon civilization enacted by the hordes of satyrs who had crossed the Belgian frontier—when he read of the appeal made to the manhood of Britain, he took some more exercise. The sound of his stamping feet on the floor of that distant room of his was heard by the gardener outside and he looked around to discover who was making the noise. Mark caught a glimpse of the man as the man looked up from his flower border, and so was forced to express himself, not by stamping on the floor and kicking the wainscot, but by the less satisfying medium of tearing his books into shreds, covers and all—the tough covers brought out all that was best in his nature, they took such a lot of rending, though they only belonged to pasteboard novels.

He had once read a story of a man who, at midnight, rang up on the telephone the woman whom he loved. He was exchanging phrases of love with his love—of exquisite memories—of passionate anticipation, when suddenly she exclaimed. “ My God! there is a man coming in by the window! ” Then came to the ears of the horrified lover, the shrieks of the woman—the sound of a pistol shot—the moan —the fall on the floor—silence—dead silence! The lover was frantic, but the villa where the woman lived was three miles away. He had heard her cries, but he was powerless to stretch out a hand to save her from murder—powerless to catch the ruffian by the throat and strangle the soul out of him.

He felt himself in the place of that unhappy man. The cry of violated Belgium was sounding in his ears, and he had a passionate longing to rush to her help —to strike at least one blow to avenge the outrage upon her. And he was doomed to do nothing. The previous night he had felt something akin to resignation; but now all that had vanished. Resignation? He tore his books and flung them on the floor and stamped upon them, and then, tired out, he threw himself into a chair and actually wept in a passion of rebellion against his fate, not the tears of a sorrowing child, but wild angry tears of vexation and bitterness. . . .

Before he had nearly recovered from his paroxysm of impotent rage, he heard the faint sound of the house telephone bell. Ah, there was the realization of his story—the telephone. So carried away was he by his fancy that he had actually gone across the room to the door before he recovered himself. The telephone bell—of course it was one of the usual tradesmen’s messages—“ Sorry, but there are no sweetbreads, will cutlets do instead? ” or “ Sorry the kitchen clock is not ready yet, can’t promise it before Monday, so very busy.” But in another minute the parlourmaid knocked at the door of the room and told him that Miss Inman was at the telephone and wished to speak to him.

He went downstairs to the receiver and told Angela that he was there.

“ I had no letter from you this morning,” she said. “ I expected one; but I suppose I should be glad that you had no time to write, for that must have meant that you were busy preparing to go away. Do tell me what luck you have had, dear? What about rejoining your old regiment. I heard yesterday that several Yeomanry regiments are crossing to (France almost immediately.”

What reply was he to make to her? He had no time to consider.

“ I’ve had rotten luck,” he said. “ There’s no chance of my getting back to the old regiment, I’m sorry to say. How are you, my Angela? I’m sorry to hear such bad accounts of Colonel Lullington.”

“ I’m quite well, dear, only a little tired. Poor Colonel Lullington! I hope you don’t think it too heartless of me, Mark, to ring you up in this way when he is so terribly ill in the next room; but I felt so anxious about you. I could not understand how I failed to get a letter from you.”

“ Do not trouble about me, Angela. You can have no idea how—how—how much red tape there is still going. One might have thought that at a time like the present—but I won’t bother you with my grievances. I hope that everything will come out all right in the end—before the end of the war, at any rate.”

“ Before the end of the week, you mean. Ah, well never mind ... oh, there’s one of the nurses calling for me. I must say good-bye—good-bye, dearest Mark, and God bless you whatever happens.”

She had rung him off before he could even say a good-bye in response to hers.

Within another hour he had made up his mind to go to her and tell her the truth. She would believe him, he knew; she would trust him. He could not bear to conceal the truth from her—to continue to play the part into which he had been surprised by the suddenness of her ringing him up. She would believe him. She would sympathize with him. She would not suggest that his discovery that he had some heart disease had been made at a singularly opportune moment.

But, of course, he would insist on their engagement being broken off. He would not be so vilely ungenerous as to bind her to him now that he was unfit to marry any girl. To be sure the doctors had assured him that, with care, he would be all right again within a year—he was ready to compromise the six months of the one and the eighteen months of the other for a year—but still, heart disease was a serious matter. It might be worse than the doctors imagined. Was he a man who should bind a girl down to keep her promise to him? It would be an act of the most ordinary justice on his part to set her free; and he would write to her insisting on doing so without delay.

But before evening he had reconsidered the matter. He thought of Angela sitting alone by the death-bed of the man whom she loved as a father, and who had been more to her than her own father had ever been —she was in great trouble, and when the end came she would doubtless be overwhelmed with grief. Would it not be cruel, he asked himself, to approach Angela with such a proposal at this time?

He made up his mind that it would be more than cruel of him to go to her, or even to write to her in such circumstances. After all, there was no need for any immediate action on his part. Heaven knew that there would be plenty of time to spare for this duty later on. He would not be going away—he gave a very bitter laugh at the thought. Oh, dear, no; he would always be available for this or any other duty, save only the duty from which he was excluded; and when Angela would be in a fit state to hear all that he had to say to her he would say it. She would be shocked; and perhaps, in the generosity of her beautiful nature, she might refuse to listen to his suggestion; but nevertheless, he would be firm and insist on giving her her freedom. He would not stand between her and the happiness which she deserved with a man who was a man, and not a crock with a heart that might play him false at any moment. His heart might play him false, but he would take good care that it did not play her false.

So he refrained from writing.

But what was he to say to his sister when he met her in the drawing-room before going in to dinner, and she cried out in high spirits, that she had good news for him—news which she knew would delight him?

“ What, have the Germans retreated from Belgium? ” he cried.

“ That is not my news,” she said. “ No; but I met Colonel Colvin and told him how low-spirited you were because, as I could see, you were chafing at the red tape that prevented your being allowed to rejoin your old regiment; and he said, ’ Tell him to make his mind easy. I’ll guarantee that he is appointed Temporary Captain within twenty-four hours of his making the application, and he may take it from me that he will be confirmed in his rank almost immediately.’ So, there you are. It appears that, George Hampton cannot get back from South America for at least two months, and Lord Avonthorpe has accepted a staff appointment, so that there will be a shortage of qualified officers for the rank of captain, and Colonel Greatorex will simply jump at the chance of getting hold of you.”

What reply was he to make to this bearer of good news?

He had none ready. He was silent. His sister stood back to stare at him. His attitude for some days had puzzled her, but it had not prepared her for the shock of his silence at this time.

“ What on earth—” she began in a gasp when she was able to speak. “ What on earth do you mean? Why is that queer look on your face? Did you not grasp what I had to tell you? ”

“ Oh, yes; I understand what—what—you said Colvin told you,” said he in a low voice—the voice of a schoolboy making an absurdly lame excuse to the accusation of his master. “ I gathered that you —I should rather say Colvin—oh, everybody knows that Colvin sometimes talks through his hat. He has led people astray before now. To hear him sometimes one would fancy that he was in daily consultation with Kitchener. Oh, Aunt Tabitha, doesn’t everyone know the market value of his ‘ Take my word for it ’? You may take my word for it, Cecile, Colvin knows nothing about the regiment, or what the Colonel would do or wouldn’t do.”

Still she stared at him. More than a minute had elapsed before she found her voice. It was no longer the voice of a babbler who chatters irrelevantly from topic to topic, never deviating into anything of the smallest interest—that was what she had a name for being, and that was why she got on so well with people in her own circle; but now she was speaking in the deliberate tone of one who has considered a matter down to its very foundation. Her tone amazed him.

“ It seems perfectly clear to me that you have no intention of trying to get back to your old regiment, or any regiment,” she said. “ I have never known you behave like a coward in all my life; but if anyone says that your bearing in regard to the war is not that of a coward, that one has not been as close to you as I have been. A coward—a coward—a shirker! ” “ Good God, Cecile! think what you are saying! ” he cried. His face had become ashen white. His eyes were blazing, his lips quivering.

“ What am I saying? I shall say it again,” she cried. “ I will say that ever since war was declared you have behaved as if you were afraid—as if something dreadful were hanging over you—something that—that you were anxious to run away from. It has seemed to me that you were shrinking from a duty; there has been a furtive expression on your face for the past three days —as if you were anxious to—to—to escape observation —as if you were hiding from someone or something— as if you had some disgraceful secret on your mind. Now, I have told you just what I feel I have noticed, and you may be angry or not, as you see fit.”

She continued looking at him for some time after she had spoken, as if she were waiting for him to reply to her. By the time she had finished, however, he had certainly not the demeanour of a man who is about to make a straight reply to an unfounded accusation. His head, that had been raised in a pose of indignation, was drooping; his eyes, that had been ablaze, were turned to the carpet. If he had been doing his best to achieve the furtive look of her accusation, he could not have been more successful.

He stood before her for a few moments, then he inhaled with a sound that was like a long sigh turning into a short sob. But he never looked at her.

“ My God! I never knew until now what men look like when they are cowards. I never saw a coward before,” she whispered.

And then he gave a little cry—an appeal for mercy— for pity, raising his head with an effort.

But her recently acquired power of observing was not penetrative; she had not been changed by a miracle from a chatterer to a gnostic. If that had been possible, she would have understood the appeal in his cry, and have fathomed the nature of his secret. The sound that came from him only increased the contempt that she was endeavouring—not without success—to express for him.

She gave him a look, and then walked across the room, seated herself on a sofa, and picked up the evening paper that lay on the floor at her feet.

And then the parlourmaid threw open the door and announced dinner.

CHAPTER XV

LADY BARSTON had not the least difficulty in returning to her old self while the servant was in the dining-room. She became once more the exponent of the trivial’—the triiler with the superficial. She kept it up quite easily—infinitely more easily than he did, though his conversation was a wonder to himself.

But when the peaches and the nectarines were placed on the table and Alice had withdrawn, there was a chilly silence across the table.

Only for a few moments, however, then Mark said:

“ Cecile, we have got on very well together in this house, haven’t we? ”

“ Why should we not? Until now——”

“ Well, I wonder how it is possible that you, knowing all my fife—everything I have ever done—could believe for a moment, that I should be a coward all in a moment, and that moment, too, one when our country has no use for cowards.”

“ My dear Mark, I ask you yourself to say if——”

“ I will say nothing. I will only ask you to think if it is possible that I—that anyone could become a coward all at once. Have you ever seen a coward? I have never seen one in all my life—a physical coward, I mean —a man who would slink out of a fight when he should be in the thick of it. Only when the Hermes was in that collision in the Persian Gulf did I come across a physical coward, and he was a miserable hound from Port Said —the off-scouring of a life of filth—never an Englishman or an Irishman or a Scotsman. You have never seen a coward. You don’t know what a coward looks like.”

“ Mark, I gave you a chance of explaining—I give you the chance still. Why, in the name of heaven, did you look that way when I told you what everyone was expecting you to do? If you tell me now that you mean to take the place that is offered to you in your regiment,

I will acknowledge that—”

“I’m not prepared to make any conditions with you,

Cecile. I may be a moral coward——”

“ Oh, nobody minds a moral coward; you know that as well as I do. I daresay we’re all of us moral cowards some time or other; it’s quite another matter having a chance to go out and fight and choosing to remain at home. If you were only a moral coward, why should you be afraid to face people as you have been for the past three days? Why should you shut yourself up in your room all day and give instructions that no one was to be admitted, if you did not fear to meet people ?

“ I cannot tell you—I cannot answer you.”

“ You can at least tell me if you mean to join the army again, to do your duty as a man whose country is at war.”

“ I cannot answer you—God help me! I cannot answer you, Cecile. I can only ask you if you think that I am the sort of man who would willingly behave like a cur in such a crisis as is now upon us? ”

“ It would be impossible for me to think that, if I had not seen with my own eyes—if you had not refused to say what you mean to do. Even now, if you tell me—”

“I can tell you nothing. Perhaps I am a fool; I daresay in the course of another year, if I’m alive— no, whether I’m alive or not—people will say that I was a fool to allow myself to be misunderstood; but I shall have to bear that.”

“ You are not going to apply for the vacancy in your old regiment? ”

“I am not.”

“ And you will not tell me why? ”

He nodded.

“ Very well; in that case, I may tell you that I’m going to pay my long-promised visit to Katie Wallace to-morrow. If you are ashamed of meeting people in our own neighbourhood—and you have shown everyone that you are—I refuse to take your place before them. I cannot remain, as you do, shut up in one room and refusing to see anyone; and I cannot hurry across the road when I see someone coming who will be sure to put questions to me which I cannot answer.”

“ You need not be at the trouble of going to Katie Wallace’s,” said he. “ I have made up my mind to go away.”

“ To run away? ”

This was another revelation to him. He had no idea that this shallow sister of his was capable of expressing so much as she did in three words. Scorn—reproach— ridicule. He was really so surprised by her capacity so revealed, that he was almost insensible of the fact that he was the object of the poisoned barb of the three words. He scarcely felt the sting.

“ Yes—to run away. It would have been better if I had done so at once,” he said.

“ At once? The moment that you heard that war was declared? ”

“ About then. If war had not been declared, I should not have had occasion to think of running away.”

“ Of course you know what this will mean to Angela. Have you told Angela yet? ”

“ Not yet. If Angela will not trust me——”

“ You will require to tell her a good deal more than you have told me if you wish her to trust you; you will have to trust her first with your—your explanation.”

He did not attempt to answer her. He sat there examining the tips of his fingers.

“ And there is someone else,” she said, after a long pause, and now her tone had changed again. There was no note of derision in it, one of sadness only. “ Yes, what about father? Who is to tell him, Mark? ”

“ I can tell him everything,” he replied quickly and steadily. “He is the one person to whom I can tell everything. He will understand.”

“ Will he? You will have to tell him a good deal more than you have told me or anyone else.”

He smiled. Her mention of their father gave him the only moment of relief that he had known for days. He knew that he could tell his father exactly how he was placed by the verdict of the doctors. He knew that his father would not mistrust him. If his father had been at home Mark would have gone to him the moment he had had that morning interview with Charwood. His father would have told him what to do. His father would have stood by him. He would not have felt isolated as he did now.

“ Where do you mean to go? ” inquired Lady Barston. “ To go? ”

“ Yes. Where do you mean to—to—hide? ”

“ I mean to—to—hide. You have given me the right word. I mean to hide. If I were to tell you or anyone else the name of my hiding-place, it would be a hiding-place no longer.”

She seemed unable to deny this. And in the course of a few minutes she saw how much stronger her position would be if she were able to say truthfully when meeting her friends and they asked her what about her brother and what corps he had joined, that she had not the remotest idea where he had gone. She perceived how easily she could give her interrogators to understand that he was wandering about, doing his best to get taken on by some regiment that was going to be earliest in the fighting line.

And although she had called him a coward, she was quite well aware of the fact that she would have no difficulty whatever in getting everyone to believe that he was moving heaven and earth to get to the front. She knew that if she were to try to convince her friends and his that he was a coward, she would be laughed at. Lady Barston had accustomed herself to look at incidents from the standpoint of her own position in the social world. The fact of her brother being a coward was not so deplorable if people would not believe that she was the sister of a coward.

She went to bed without kissing him. But she was generous enough, with that saving grace in her mind, to say good night to him, adding:

“ I suppose you know your own business best; but you cannot expect me to appreciate it without first getting a hint from you. However—good night.”

“ I don’t blame you in the least,” said he.

CHAPTER XVI

HE wondered, when taking his prescribed exercise that night, how he had not thought long ago about going away to some place where he would not run the chance of meeting people with whom he was acquainted, and who would most certainly put questions to him that he would have some trouble in answering. But the moment his sister had spoken of going away, he perceived that the fact of his hiding himself, as he had been doing for the past few days, would tell badly against him, should his friends continue making their inquiries about him. Why should he hide himself all day, if he was all right? they would ask of one another.

Yes, he would get away to some remote place where beyond these voices there should be peace, and there he would devote himself to his cure. He might be able to persuade any strangers whom he should meet that he was an invalid, but with good hope of being sound enough in the course of a month or two to go to the front as a fighting man. They would not know that he had started on his career as an invalid on the day of the declaration of war.

He went off the next morning; but not before he had spoken to Angela over the telephone.

“ Angela,” he said, “it is cruel of me to say what may add to your trouble in this hour of many troubles, so you must not let what I have to say affect you. I know that you will not, because I know that you will trust me. What I have to tell you is, that I am not going even to make an attempt to get back to the army just yet. I have the gravest possible reason for holding back. I cannot go—I cannot go. I would give all I possess to be able to go, but there are reasons why I cannot. I cannot give you any further explanation, dearest, and I know that you will be satisfied when I stop at this; but because I cannot be more explicit to anyone else, not even excepting Cecile, I feel it impossible to remain at home, though I must stay in England. Cecile, who should know me better than anyone else, has called me a coward. I am a coward of a sort, I know, or I would not shrink as I do from saying boldly what has happened. It is nothing dishonourable, but there are people who would never be convinced that it is not so. Angela, I am face to face with the most terrible trial of my life, but it must be endured by me, and I will not shrink from it, because I have the assurance of your love and sympathy and pity—do not forget to pity me, Angela.”

These were his words pieced together into a coherency that they certainly had not possessed as he uttered them. He could only jerk out a sentence, or a bit of a sentence, with difficulty at first, but after a stammering gasp or two, he was carried away by his passion, and became fluent enough.

When he had spoken there was silence. He could hear a faint sound now and again—the tinkle of the glasses of a medicine-bottle—the soft closing of a sickroom door; but for a long time no whisper from Angela-Still he kept the receiver to his ear. He knew her. He knew that she was not thinking what she should say; but only trying to say it—struggling against an emotion that was overpowering her.

He waited.

And at last she found her voice. It was shaking, but only while she spoke her first words, then it became clear and steadfast and unfaltering.

“ Mark, dearest—oh, Mark, my love—my love! Oh, Mark—I love you—I trust you—you need not tell me anything. You need not reproach yourself for not telling me any more than you have done. Whatever you do, my Mark, will be the act of a brave man. I trust you, dear, I trust you. I shall never cease to trust you even though all the world should be against you. God bless you, my dear love. Do not say another word. I want to say the last word—as usual, Mark, as usual. God bless you.”

He obeyed her. He did not say another word—to her.

He packed a portmanteau and put it on his little motor at daybreak. He took care to have a couple of extra tins of petrol in his locker, and then went away westward through the still sleeping villages—westward and still westward for the first hour, through villages just awaking; westward in time for a comfortable breakfast at a hotel of a big seaside town— a hotel just denuded of all its waiters except one, who affirmed that he was a Swiss with strong English leanings. Westward still went Mark along a low coast road for mile after mile, and then inland through village after village, some with fourteenth-century churches, and a few with nineteenth-century “ Bethels ” and iron-roofed “ Ebenezers ”; then back to the coast and another coastland town, beloved of the tripper and loving all trippers, especially such as tripped by motor. Here he had a newspaper and lunched at a window that allowed him a glimpse of many men in khaki, all hurrying to the railway station. He left his motor in a garage to be rubbed down; and in an hour and a half he was once more at the wheel, steering westward.

He arrived at the beautiful little town standing by the English Channel with its famous Minster. This was the place which came into his mind when he asked himself in what direction he should go to find shelter from the questioning looks that he dreaded far more than the questioning voices. He had passed through East-church in the early part of the summer and had not thought much about it until that question “

Whither? ” came to him, when Cecile had talked about going away. He recollected the peaceful charm of the place. The town seemed nothing but a cathedral close; and he had conceived a great love for cloisters. He felt that whithersoever he went, it would be to a place where he might find sanctuary.

Eastchurch was as silent this day, when the papers were so full of the Comus riot that the obscene barbarians had begun to enact in Belgium, as it had been when Mark had passed through in May, when the dove of peace seemed hovering over the quiet English land, and surely its dovecote was Eastchurch Minster.

Waiting in the one hotel of the town only to wash the dust from his face and change his clothes, he went slowly down the street to the old church, and once more he was conscious of the atmosphere of sanctuary as he passed through the venerable porch and found himself among the Glorious Company and the Goodly Fellowship, arrayed in gorgeous robes in the windows. It seemed to him that he had entered a place whose windows afforded tired human eyes a glimpse into the solemn heights of heaven itself. There was the crystal river flowing between its banks of amaranth and lily; there was the tree of life with its yellow fruit spreading from pane to pane; there were the palms borne by the conquerors, there were the lovely green pastures where the weary could lay them down and rest, and there were the still waters beside which the tired ones were led. And from every glass of gorgeous colour there looked down upon the grey world the gentle faces of the Goodly Fellowship, who have power to soothe the troubles of those who suffer even as they themselves suffered when on earth.

He was glad that he had come. He felt that he had reached the place of which he had been in search. Here was rest.

And as the Psalm “ In Te, Domine, speravi ” rolled its triumphant notes through the grey arches and around the trembling roof, he had a sense of safety such as he had not known for days—safety from the stinging glances which his morbid sensitiveness had fancied would be cast at him for his failing to respond to the call to khaki that was being shouted through England. Here he would know no reproach of sneering lips—of ignorant busybodies; here he could trust people to understand without question; the Goodly Fellowship with whom he was mingling would understand without questioning him how it was with him; for had not they come out of great tribulation ?

He felt no longer rebellious. It had been decided without his having a voice in the matter that he was not to go to the fight just yet. He was content, as a soldier should be, at the decision of his Commander. He felt sure that when it was decreed that he should go he would be given a sign.

And while he was on his knees in this place of living colour and grey stone made eloquent by carving, Angela Inman was kneeling by the bedside of the man whose soul had passed away, praying for the peace of the dead whom she had loved and of the living whom she loved.

Her godfather, Geoffrey Lullington, had died early in the morning.

The death of so important a person, had it occurred at any other time, would have absorbed the attention of all Chilworth, that ancient county town of Nethershire that had retained its integrity in the face of the many temptations to grow prosperous and modern to which some of its neighbours had succumbed. But even Chilworth was able to see the events of the day in their proper perspective. When it was made public that the Mayor had got a letter from a Royal Personage relative to the organization of a great National Fund for the relief of sufferers by the war, the citizens at once perceived how small an incident in the history of the country was the decease even of a man who owned some thousands of acres in the neighbourhood and the greater part of a street in the town. The absorbing event of the day was, not the passing of Colonel Lullington, but the beginning of a correspondence between Royalty and Chilworth. The Mayor was ready to show to all comers the letter which he had received from the Prince—he was advised to have it framed and given a place of honour in his shop window, but a brother alderman in the same line of business, hearing of this, made a protest against such an adventitious ally being introduced into honourable trade rivalry, and the Mayor at once yielded the point. But the letter was not hidden under a bushel; the Mayor put on his chain of office and read every page of it on the steps of the Town Hall at the one o’clock dinner hour, and the crowd cheered and sang “ God save the King ” until their chops were cold. They did not care. If their dinners were cold, their loyalty was warm; and there was not a man who did not feel that, at last, and after four or five centuries of neglect, Chilworth was about to come into its own. The recognition by Royalty of its importance had come at last. Thus it was that Chilworth was able to view in their true perspective the incidents of a momentous day. When they learned that Colonel Lullington had died during the night, they did not make a topic of the melancholy occurrence; they only shook their heads and asked one another if it was true that the reception of a letter from Royalty carried with it the honour of knighthood.

Dr. Charwood had been with Colonel Lullington up to the last; but that case represented the close of his private practice for many days. He had been sent for by the old chief of his ambulance in South Africa, and entrusted with the organization of the Red Cross work for the whole of Nethershire, and his working hours were more regular than they had been for years. He had no reason to complain, he assured Mrs. Thorburn when he met her one day at the great meeting which was presided over by the Duchess of Nethershire, and she inquired if he was not overworked.

“ Overworked? ” he said. “ You, an old Red Cross Sister, and a Lady of Grace into the bargain, talking about anyone being overworked! Oh, no; I rarely rise before six, and I am usually snugly asleep, at the latest, by one or two in the morning.”

“ And, of course, you never felt better in your life? ” she said.

“ Now you’re talking like the good Sister that you are. I really never was better. You see I always was a bit of a slacker. The stagnation of the past week suits me quite well.”

And then they began to discuss the Work. The Duchess had paid her tribute to the consummate skill of Dr. Charwood in making such arrangements for the reception of the wounded and the convalescents of the great Army who might be sent to England, as enabled almost every town—every village—to take a part in the relief of the innocent sufferers. Everybody who knew anything of the work had experience of the organizing genius of Dr. Charwood. The only people who thought him a greatly overrated man were those young women—and some of them not so absurdly young either—who were throwing themselves heart and soul into the limelight. In time of war, all England is illuminated with limelight. There is hardly a town or village in which its little glare is not apparent, and there is not a town or village in which there are not persons ready and willing to stand even its most dazzling effulgence. Of course, the fussy, muddling Mayors with their ponderous platitudes delivered from The Chair, have a right to make themselves conspicuous, and they usually avail themselves of their privilege. They fulfil their duties as local savings-boxes; for just as (as churchwardens know) a polished silver (e. p.) alms-dish will be laden with coin, when a simple, willow-pattern platter will remain half empty, so an official robe trimmed with real ox-tail sable, and supporting a gilt chain of many links, stimulates the generous impulses of tradespeople, and “ The Mayor’s Fund ” grows hourly. All honour be to the Mayors, for the limelight that encompasses them gleams upon the coins that they draw to them in the cause of charity. But what of the thrusting crowd who endeavour to emerge into the limelight from beneath the cloak of charity—a garment not trimmed with any sham embroidery, but one which is most graciously worn when, like the coat of the fable, it makes the wearer invisible?

But the patience of the great giving public of England is inexhaustible; and they buy tickets from the singers, who know that if they do not make themselves heard at home when the din of war is in the air abroad, they will never have a chance again; they buy tickets from the music teachers who have pupils to exploit, they buy tickets even from the windmill reciter who has previously waved wild arms to empty chairs; they buy tickets for all that is dreary and weary and dread, and some of them actually go to the performances for which they have bought tickets !

“ But what does it matter so long as money comes in? ” was what Dr. Charwood said when reference was made to the struggling bands associated with the arts of “ getting up ”—getting up concerts, getting up bazaars, getting up nondescript entertainments that get their names into programmes, with two lines in a local newspaper. “ What does it matter? I wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, even if it is only a pony—a pony in a certain form of speech means a decent sum of money, and money is a good thing, though it may have come through hands that are in need of being washed in a strong solution of carbolic.”

But he became definitely and distinctly offensive in his treatment of the young women—some of them not so young either—who, without having had a day’s training for one of the most exacting professions in the world, sought to take up nursing, having satisfied themselves that a nurse’s uniform was becoming to them. They came to him by the score, begging to be appointed to a hospital—some of them preferred one where a grey cloak was worn, others made it a sine qua non that their uniform should be blue, with a Red Cross on a white ground at one side. He was very rude, several of them declared; and so he was; but he was certainly rudest of all to the young lady who expressed her willingness to nurse officers but hoped he would not ask her to nurse common soldiers. He did not ask her to nurse either the one or the other. The request that he made in her case was not addressed to her, but to his orderly, and it was for the man to show the young woman into the street as quickly as possible.

And then, after some weeks of fine weather, there came a day and a night of storm raging along the south coast. At eight o’clock on the next morning Lady Barston, whose toilet was quite incomplete, was told that Dr. Charwood had called to see her on a matter of great urgency. She completed her dressing and came downstairs, to find in the drawing-room a ghastly figure in torn khaki, with tossed hair and bloodshot eyes—a figure that almost sprang forward to meet her; but then stopped suddenly and appeared to be making an attempt to speak.

“ Dr. Charwood,” she said; “ what is this?—what has happened?—oh, my God! something terrible has happened!—Landed—the enemy has landed and we are lost! ”

“ No, no,” he said in a hoarse voice, “ it is not that, it is something about your brother. Lady Barston, I bring you bad news of him—bad news? God knows what is bad news. Is it bad news to tell you that your brother died like a true man—a brave man—he saved the lives of four men, and not till then was he killed. There was no more heroic act done in England this year.”

He dropped into the nearest chair and bowed his head down to his hands; she saw how greatly overcome he was. He was trembling with emotion.

She looked at him for some time. It was plain to him that she had failed to realize the dreadful import of his words. She stood there silent. At last he heard her drop into a chair, while she said:

“ And I called him a coward—I called him a coward. It was just three weeks ago—in this very room—a coward! ”

He had expected to hear an hysterical outburst from her; but none came. She seemed perfectly calm— as calm as he was disturbed.

“ A coward—I called him a coward,” she said again. “

A coward—Mark—my brother! It was of him you were speaking—are you quite sure—Mark, my brother ? ”

“ The bravest act I ever saw done. All England will be talking of it to-morrow.”

“ He was fighting—in Belgium, or was it France? ” she asked.

“ He had not left England; he could not have done so; I would not have allowed him. He had a disease of the heart that disqualified him—that was his grievance.”

“ And I called him a coward,” she said.

In another moment her tears came, and he knew that she was all right.

CHAPTER XVII

HE waited for a long time before she was equal to the hearing of the story he had to tell. He was able to make it a short story by omitting most of the details. It had happened at a well-known part of the coast, six or seven miles from Eastchurch. Mark had written to him from Eastchurch, telling him how much better he felt, and wondering if it might be that he had made enough progress to be allowed to offer himself for service. The doctor, having an appointment with the chief medical officer of a camp eight miles beyond Eastchurch, had sent him a telegram promising to meet him on that day. He had met him, and was able to report very favourably upon the progress toward recovery that he had made, though it would not be safe for him to think of joining the army for at least four or five months still. The doctor had gone to Eastchurch by train and, as it was necessary for him to be in Southwater that night, Mark had offered to drive him there. It was the one wild night of the month, and there was a heavy sea in the Channel. They could taste the brine flung over the brows of the cliffs at Brentwall, that curve of the broken coast just outside Plassid Cove, so dreaded by mariners. Approaching the highest part of the cliff road at the headland known as Plassid Point, they drove into the middle of a crowd of men with lanterns. One of the yachts that have their headquarters in summer at the safe anchorage within the Cove, had failed, they learned, to make the narrow entrance between the cliffs, and, trying to work round to windward, had been flung upon the rocks at the foot of the cliff and broken in two. It had been a small craft with only four hands aboard, and so far as the coastguard who was on the summit of the cliff could make out by the feeble light of his lantern, the men had managed to find a foothold on the ledge of flat rock that ran down like a causeway to the point on which the yacht had struck; but one man had apparently been badly hurt, and the others so exhausted that they were unable to climb to a place of safety on the broken cliff face. Few men, except expert mountaineers, would undertake the climb even in the finest weather, and in the face of such a gale it would be impossible.

“ We saw how it was,” said Charwood, telling the tale; “ the ledge where the men were lying would be covered by the tide in half an hour, the coastguard knew, and the only chance they had was to get a rope brought to them, by which they could be hauled singly up the cliff. In ordinary circumstances this might have been done, but it so happened that there had been another of the many rock-falls that have taken place there—some hundreds of tons of the undermined cliff had been dislodged and fallen below during the previous week, and a dozen of the heaviest of the army ammunition lorries that had passed on their way between the camps the day before, had brought the overhanging brow of the cliff to so shaky a state that the coastguard feared that even the strain of the rope would dislodge a portion of it which would be bound to plunge like an avalanche upon the ledge below, inevitably sweeping the men away or burying them between the ledge and the foot of the cliff. Within five minutes Mark Rowland had the coastguard’s rope about him and we were lowering him, swinging over the edge of that cliff into the darkness. We could hear the crash of the stones and the earth that he dislodged as he tried to keep himself clear of the face of that fearful descent to the irregular crevice between the rocks that would give him foothold—he must have crawled along it to the ledge beyond. We felt the rope slacken, and payed it out until, after waiting what seemed an interminable time, we got the signal to haul. But there were only six of us, and one had to keep the rope on the roller at the top to prevent its being frayed through on the edge. It was the motor that gave us our chance. The ground sloped down pretty steeply inland from the cliff and the engine had only to be started. By easing off the rope gently at first, until the car got some way on, it did all the work of hauling. The first man to reach the top of the cliff brought with him the light line from below, for the rope with its fixed noose to be guided back to the others. When the third was brought up, there was a nasty earth slip —we heard the crash of the avalanche below; but the guide line had not been fouled. The fourth man was brought up: but before he had more than got foothold—if he had not held on by the bight of the rope he would have gone over—there was a crash— tons and tons of the undermined cliff had slipped down —I saw it when the dawn came some hours later-—it could not have been less than five or six hundred tons —it might have been the result of an earthquake lying there—it filled up all the space between the ledge and the rocks—no ledge was to be seen. There had always been, even at low tide, the coastguard told me, a broad, deep channel, five or six feet wide, between the ledge and the cliff, but this morning there was none; it had been filled up by the fall from above-stones that must have weighed a couple of hundredweight lay tumbled there-—hundreds of them, and they had carried down with them everything they struck. I stood beside the mass in that channel. I could only stand and look at it—no power on earth can make any change upon it. I stood beside it. . . .”

“ His grave—his grave—and I called him a coward —yes, in this very room—that is the horrible part of it,” said Cecile. She spoke with extraordinary calm; but there was a look on her face.

• • • • • • •

Dr. Charwood had said that everyone would hear the next day how Mark Rowland had met his death—how, like the brave men who were fighting in Belgium and France, he had rushed forward to meet his death in the charge, so to speak; but Dr. Charwood had not counted upon the evening papers. Every evening paper had an account of Mark’s heroism. Had the incident taken place a month earlier, a full column would have been devoted to the account of it; but, as it was, the shortest reference to it occupied a qnarter of a column.

• • • • • • •

When Lady Barston and Angela reached the dread cliffs at Brentwall late that same afternoon, they found quite a number of people there. Some were in motors at the top of the cliff, others were in boats, for the sea was now almost smooth, cruising among the rocks. It was nearly high tide, but so vast had been the mass that had fallen from the face of the cliff, that even after filling up the deep channel, a broad high ridge was exposed.

The coastguard’s account of the disaster was highly charged with technicalities, but it was sufficiently intelligible to the ladies to let them know that Dr. Charwood had omitted nothing that could be told of how Mark had acted. The officer of the coastguards was not quite sure that the men of the patrol had been justified in letting anyone venture his life as Mark had done, when they knew that the cliff had been undermined by so enormous a landslide the week before; but the Doctor assured him that Mark had refused to be kept back; and the officer said that his patrol had affirmed that he had shown them that he knew as much about the danger as they did. He had not needed them to tell him anything of how to work the ropes for the rescue of the men on the ledge. Mark was an experienced yachtsman and he had made no mistake. Three of the men who had been saved were able to confirm something of this. He had made fast the rope to each of them in turn, so cleverly that they had been able to use their feet in fending off from the cliff when they were being drawn up. The fourth man had had his arm broken by a fall on the ledge of rock when the yacht had broken in two, and he had been taken to the Cottage Hospital at Plassid Cove.

There was nothing more to be said—or done.

That seemed, at first, to be the most dreadful part of it: there was nothing that could be done. Mark had been overwhelmed by the avalanche from above, and it had swept him into the deep channel which it had filled up in a moment. The two women were standing by his grave.

• • • • • • •

“ Even if he had got safely to the top of the cliff, having given those men their lives, he would not have felt compensated for being forced to remain in England when his friends were fighting abroad,” said the Doctor, when they were returning from their dreadful journey. “ The poor fellow was inexpressibly disappointed when I had to tell him that, while his condition had wonderfully improved during the three weeks that he was under treatment, yet it would be impossible for him to go abroad for several months. He tried to argue with me—oh, I could see that he went to his death in an impulse of—of—-what shall I call it—exasperation? Yes, that was it. It was an act of defiance of his hard fate—I wonder if you understand what I mean? He had made up his mind that he would not be baulked of his due—something like that. He felt that if he could not fight the enemies of his country, he would not be held back from the other conflict. I did not even try to dissuade him from that attempt. Honestly, I assure you that I was afraid of something worse happening. He had been, I thought, resigned to wait for some months after going to Eastchurch; but when I told him the truth, he did not show himself to be very much resigned. He said something to me—I got nervous about him. I would not have been surprised to hear that something had happened—thank God, his death was different.”

“ And I called him a coward,” sobbed his sister.

Angela was not sobbing. It actually seemed as if she were exultant. Her voice had the note of those who talk of the heroes whom they love, when she said:

“ Thank God for his death—‘ a man who died for men,’ if that is not a claim to honour—to worship— the Bible is a foolish book. Christ, Who died for men, be thanked for such a death as my beloved’s. And he trusted me. He showed that he had confidence in my believing in him without requiring him to explain anything to me. He told me the day before he went away how it was with him—that he had been debarred from going with the others to the front, but he could not tell me why. He trusted to me to believe him and I was able to give him assurance of this. My last words to him were, ‘ God bless you! ’ ”

“ And your prayer was heard,” said Dr. Charwood.

No other word was exchanged between them until they reached their village. The motor brought Angela to her mother’s house, and Mrs. Thorburn, who had come to Angela’s mother in the morning to remain with the invalid during her daughter’s absence, was waiting for them in the porch. She had scarcely a word for Philip Charwood, and very few for Angela. She knew how valueless are words.

Within an hour the Doctor was twenty miles away, conferring with some of his confreres of the Red Cross about the new ambulances that were to meet the trains at the seaside town of Regentsand, where hospital after hospital was being equipped for the coming of the sick and the wounded.

“ By the way, Charwood,” remarked one of the doctors, “ I see your name in connection with some accident or other in the evening papers. Was it a serious affair? ”

“ Oh, no; only one man killed,” replied Charwood.

“ That all? Not much to make a fuss about,” said the other.

“ No fuss was made,” said Charwood. “ I’ve just returned from the place with the sister and the fiancee of the poor chap that was killed; but they made no fuss.”

“ They had no need to. Poor women! Lord help the poor women during the next twelve months—the wives, the mothers, the sisters, the sweethearts of the men who are going to their maiming, or going to their death, because a nation is mad enough to allow themselves to be the slaves of a man who is mad with a lust for blood! ”

CHAPTER XVIII

BEFORE August was ended a great change had taken place in the life of the county town of Nethershire. Chilworth had awakened after a comfortable slumber of centuries. The latest news of Chilworth that had reached the rest of England previous to August, 1914, was dated 1264, and had to do with a fight between the king and his lieges, in which bows and arrows, maces and battle-axes played an important part. But after the lapse of more than half a millennium of slumber, Chilworth had awakened and was actually bustling. It would require a good deal of persuasion to convince anyone who had known the town for any length of time that it had touched even the hem of the flowing garment that clothes any great national enterprise; but before Chilworth had quite done rubbing the sleep from her eyes, the thing was upon her, and she was in the throes of Innovation. Of course, the fact of Royalty having written personally quite a nice letter to the Mayor had prepared people for something—it had been a sort of alarum clock for the awakening; but it certainly never led anyone to suppose that three days should accomplish what six hundred years had failed to do—that the inhabitants of a town who, on the twentieth of a month, had numbered eleven thousand souls, should on the twenty-fifth number twenty-three thousand. But that is just what happened in Chilworth. She had been pounced upon by the demon of Experiment, and never again would Chilworth be the same place. Nearly twelve thousand of the newly-recruited army had marched upon the town and were billeted upon the inhabitants—not only upon the inhabitants of the back streets and the High Street, but also those of the red-brick avenues and the residential Park.

And when Chilworth had yawned herself awake, Chilworth found herself greatly pleased, and settled down to her new life as naturally as a young woman does when she recovers from her surprise at having given birth to twins when only expecting a unit.

Nearly twelve thousand men, most of them from the most distant parts of England, marched upon the town without leaders and without officers, and took their places among the people without a single act of disorder being recorded on the part of the men and without a single act of discourtesy on the part of the people. Several days had passed before an officer arrived, and then the senior of the three who put in an appearance had seen scarcely one month’s service. But it was not found necessary to draft in an extra policeman to the ordinary town force, and for weeks and months there was not a case at the local police-court arising out of the extraordinary conditions of life in the place.

But what a transformation took place in Chilworth! It was like a perpetual race-day in the streets; for during three days in every year the Chilworth races brought some train-loads of people to overflow the town, and on those days none of the inhabitants would look out of doors except on business; but in these stirring days and nights of August, 1914, the people mingled with their paying guests, the soldiers, and it was soon found that their guests were well paying ones. Those guests who spend £15,000 every week with their hosts are not to be regarded with coldness. The grocers, the butchers, the bakers, the vendors of the lush “ Woodbine,” and even the long-neglected candlestick-makers, made small fortunes, and the Authorities being among these fortunate ones, saw very clearly that there is a bright side to the most deplorable of wars; and forthwith started fresh “ Funds ” with excellent results— even the humblest cheesemen gladly contributed their mites to the mayoral “ Funds.”

For many weeks there was marching and countermarching through the streets of Chilworth and along the many country roads. Hourly drills took place in the fields, and the sweet singers of the Welsh regiments held nightly alfresco concerts on the steps of the county hall in the High Street. But by ten o’clock the streets were as empty as they had been at the same hour nightly during the six hundred years of Chilworth’s antebellum existence. The officer in charge of the town was Order, and every day his presence was felt. Order governed every movement, and people who had had experience of garrison towns looked on in amazement. Every day brought news of the orgies of the vilest ruffians that ever degraded humanity—orgies and outrages in a country invaded without warning—brutalities beyond those of the monsters whose names have been execrated for centuries by the civilization of Christianity—every day brought news of these abominations of the army that was trampling Belgium beneath its hoofs; but here was Chilworth’s army sleeping in peace in the midst of a peaceful town; and the inhabitants had difficulty in imagining soldiers as other than the most peace-loving of the population.

Now it was found possible by some ladies who regarded themselves as the only authentic managers of the social movements of another town some distance from Chilworth to start a real hospital for the wounded, as soon as it became known that the sufferers were being brought to England. The managing ladies rushed to their dressmakers and got fitted in the latest creations in nurses’ uniforms, with the Red Cross badge beautifully worked here and there upon them, and some of the more enterprising got tailor-made khaki overcoats of a military pattern, and coquettish khaki caps all bearing the Red Cross badge for they nearly all had attended some cooking classes, and even an ambulance class, as patronesses of the local branch of some undefined Association, and the hospital was declared open at a very pleasant tea, presided over by the lady who had elected herself “ Commandant ” and wore a spacious uniform with plenty of red about it.

But while Dr. Charwood, with the operating rank of Colonel, was organizing the distribution of the wounded through all the southern hospitals from his base at Regentsand, he somehow forgot that an inaugural tea had been given at the Haughton Home Institution, as the place was called. All the school buildings, the public halls, the bath houses, the Assembly Rooms, and the cricket pavilions throughout East Nethershire had their beds occupied, but still the Haughton Home remained empty, so far as “ cases ” were concerned, and the Commandant and her ladies, in their perfectly fitting uniforms, cooked and cleaned and lunched and tea’d together daily, and it was understood that the hospital was a great social success; but still Colonel Charwood withheld his “ cases ”; and when appealed to by the managing Commandant for something to go on with, said that unless Haughton Home were placed on a proper basis of efficiency, with a professional matron of at least five years’ experience of Red Cross Hospital work, and with professional nurses of experience under her control, he would be unable to gratify the laudable ambition of the zealous amateurs who called themselves Commandants, Sisters, and whatnot. He had had ample experience of the amateur nurse nuisance during the South African campaign, and he knew what his responsibilities were. He would not have the splendid work of the Red Cross jeopardized by the incompetence and the vanity that parodied that work.

That evening the Haughton Home was full of the wounded: the Commandant and her staff felt deeply hurt.

The next day, however, matters brightened; a weary private billeted in the town was suffering from gumboils and cold feet, and one of the amateur nurses begged his Captain to send him for treatment to the Home; he complied, and the private had the time of his life. The resources of the staff were strained to the uttermost, and printed invitations to the “ select ” of the town to visit the hospital and judge for themselves if it was not proving equal to the emergencies of a great war. The seven “ sisters ” were photographed, standing round the bed of this victim of the Kaiser’s ambition, while the Commandant, in parade uniform, superintended them from a safe distance.

Visitors were requested not to touch the exhibit.

It was when people were smiling over the empty Home that Dr. Charwood was visited at his office at Regent-sand by Angela Inman. He said to her at once:

“ My dear Miss Inman, I am glad to see you, for I know that you are not come to take up my time over some silly project. I will give you ten minutes gladly.”

“ I thought it better to come to you,” she said. “ I will not take up more than five minutes of your time. I should feel that I had been robbing someone in need of you. What I want you to tell me is this: Is it true that you want another hospital for the wounded? ”

“ Is it true? Good heavens! I want twenty, but they must be hospitals, not Haughton Homes. If you have come to plead with me for the Haughton Home, you may spare yourself the trouble.”

“ Dr. Charwood, you have heard that my godfather, Colonel Lullington, left me his house and a fortune besides,” said Angela.

“ I heard that. Perhaps I should have congratulated you.”

“ If you think that the house could be turned into a hospital and that it would not cost more than a thousand pounds a month to maintain, I will place it at the service of the Red Cross in memory of Mark Rowland.”

“ My dear Miss Inman, have you considered carefully the cost? The war may last a couple of years. You will require an experienced matron—first-class nurses; it can be done for a thousand a month, but not for less.”

“ I have been consulting Mrs. Thorburn. She has had experience. She is preparing to go to France with one of the ambulances. The only stipulation I would make—no, not a stipulation, only a suggestion— is that Mrs. Thorburn be appointed matron. I hope you will not put your veto on that.”

He wondered if she noticed the flush of which he was conscious all over his body when she made her stipulation and then withdrew the word in favour of a humbler one. For a few moments he felt that it was incumbent on him to “ retire from the Bench,’’ so to speak, when this case was being tried, lest his judgment might be prejudiced in a certain direction; but he was a courageous man: he was not afraid, even of himself. If Florence Thorburn were his greatest enemy, he knew that he would have named her as the most competent nurse in England: she was not his enemy, but his dearest friend, so why should he refrain from doing his duty in regard to her?

“ I have formed the highest opinion of Mrs. Thorburn —as a nurse,” he said. “ We have talked together frequently on the subject of nursing, and I know what her hospital record was before she came to this county If she had continued in her profession, she would certainly have been able to command any post that she had a mind to have.”

“ She came to our neighbourhood on her child’s account,” said Angela. “ Her mother had died leaving her enough to live upon. But she is still devoted to nursing. You know what she has done for love of it since she came among us? ”

“ Something of it. I say I formed the highest possible opinion of her. If she will be your matron, I feel sure that your work will be of the best. But are you sure of— of—everything? Mind you, this is a thing not to be lightly entered into, as the prayer-book says of matrimony. A thousand pounds a month—but the equipment will cost another couple of thousand. Think of it, my dear girl—don’t rush into it.”

“ I do not think of it, I think of him, Dr. Charwood. What would he think of it ? What would the man who sacrificed his life for others—strangers—what would he think of my plan of winning for his name the blessing of those who are ready to perish? It is not I who am doing this thing; it is he who is doing it.”

“ It will be done in a way that will be worthy of him, Miss Inman. If you will let me help you, I promise that your hospital will be a model one. It will go as far as anything can go toward the realization of your high aim. It will go some way toward being worthy of association with the name of Mark Rowland.”

“ That is all that I can hope for—some way. Now, I trust that I haven’t outstayed my ten minutes. Mrs. Thorburn is in my motor outside. I will tell her all that you have said.”

She gave him a parting hand. He stood at the door of his office, and that was not more than a few yards from the hall door. He had not spoken to Mrs. Thorburn for a week. He would—

But he didn’t. He did not go beyond his door. His desk was covered with papers.

“ If you had stayed for a whole hour—two hours— you would not have stayed too long,” he said. “ I should like to talk over some of the details with you and Mrs. Thorburn—but she knows as much as I do what is needful—oh, more—far more. But, again, let me beg of you to reconsider your scheme—it is a very big thing, this; it is not to be started in the impulse of a moment. Think over it, I beg of you; weigh it carefully in your mind. It may cripple you for some years.”

“ It will not cripple me. What do I want with a fortune—now? But I will give some more thought to it in order to get it more firmly fixed in my mind. Goodbye.”

He took her hand once more.

“ When you are ready for my help, give me a day’s notice,” he said. “ Already the essentials are crowding into my mind; but all in orderly procession—there is no jostling. Give me a day’s notice and I shall submit them to you.”

“ I knew I could trust to you,” she said, looking back from the door.

She went away, and he returned to his room. He heard the sound of the motor being started outside; but he did not go to the window.

That is what it means to be a great doctor.

The motor trundled away with the woman he loved looking up at the last minute to his window.

She hoped that he would not look out; but was she disappointed that he did not?

CHAPTER XIX

FOUR days after the newspapers had given an account of the wreck of the yacht off Plassid Point, Mark’s brother was able to telegraph to Cecile that his office would spare him for twenty-four hours, and he came to see her.

“ What would have been the good of coming any sooner? ” he asked. “ The poor chap is gone. When we say that, we have said all that we can say. But what a splendid exit for anyone! I really didn’t think that any of us would go so far as he did in the direction of heroism. I didn’t think we had it in us. We have all got on too well in the world to make me think that we should ever do anything heroic and that. People who look after themselves so carefully as we have always been in the habit of doing, from the dad down to me, are not the sort that are expected to do anything big for others. Of course the dad has served his country well —none better, but he was always like the men who serve the cutlets from the silver grill—looking out for tips. He got a few too; he was a K.C.M.G. after ten years’ service, and a K.C.B. (civil division) in another ten. I shouldn’t wonder if he would get the Cross when he retires. Those represent the tips that come to the man who serves his country with an eye to his own future.”

“ I thought that those things—stars, you know, and that sort—came to people naturally,” said Lady Barston.

“ Some people have to go without—stars don’t fall from the skies like Brock’s rockets when they burst,” said Mr. Rupert Rowland, of H.M. Annexation Department. “ I’m not saying that the dad didn’t earn all that he has got or may get; but I do say that he hasn’t neglected many opportunities for — for — well, for materializing his ambitions.”

“ I wish you would talk so that I can understand you, Rupert,” said Cecile. “ I really haven’t an idea what it is you are trying to say—it seems to me that whatever it is, you are trying not to say it. How does all this concern poor Mark? ”

“ Oh, I was only trying to make out that poor Mark was so disinterested and that, one would hardly believe that he belonged to our family. I think, you know, that if I wanted to save a crowd from a wreck, I should offer another chap half a sovereign to do it for me. If he wouldn’t do it for the money I would make it a sovereign; I wouldn’t be the one to haggle over such a matter. No, I don’t see myself slung over a tottering cliff on a wet night and with no umbrella.”

“ I don’t think it shows good taste to joke about it —if you are joking.”

“ I’m not; but I won’t do it any more. I only mean to say, my dear girl, that Mark was a thundering good sort to bother as he did, and——”

“ Did you offer yourself to go to the front? ” cried Cecile abruptly.

“ Oh, yes; I went so far as to do that; you see so many other chaps were out for that, I couldn’t for very shame hold back. But when my chief heard of it he gave me a talking to. You see I have made myself a master of certain details in connection with the office, and nobody else knows anything about them. The chief asked me if I was mad, or if I meant to be mean enough to throw my country over just when it needed me most; for the next few months will mean a pretty busy time for the Annexation Department. Well, I came to terms with the good old chief—that brings me back to what I was saying; Mark wouldn’t have thought about terms; but I did. It’s horrid to have to confess it, but I’ve always had a passion for making terms when I had a chance, even in a question of patriotism, like this. ‘ Will you throw over your country simply for the sake of going across the Channel to rip up dam Germans? ’ said the chief. Of course I told him that so far as disembowelling the Teutonic race was concerned, I had set my heart on it, but—’ Why the mischief don’t you set your heart on a C.M.G.? ’ he said in a whisper. Well, I stayed, and within twenty-four hours I had made a move that saved my country an expenditure of something like three millions. Those fools in the Cabinet think that they can annex somebody else’s colony when they please. They don’t think of the friendlies to the north and the south of that colony. But they really know nothing, that Cabinet: it takes us permanent officials all our time keeping them straight. They’d be up to the neck in some war if it wasn’t for us.”

Cecile had no great belief in herself as a relevant conversationalist, and she was possibly justified in her mistrust, but she felt that, compared with Rupert, she was like a judge summing up, and that not one of the humourist judges, either. She considered that he was unfeeling in talking in such a strain when the object of his visit was really to talk with her about the death of their brother. What was in her mind was that, as she had only one brother now, he was showing very bad taste in talking in a depreciatory way about that brother.

But, of course, before he returned to his office in Whitehall he had to talk a little business with her.

“ I’ve heard nothing about a will,” he said. “ We don’t need poor Mark’s money just yet, do we ? ”

“ No, we don’t,” she replied. “ I hope there is a will and that he has left his money to the Red Cross or something. But it’s quite likely that he would leave it to Angela Inman; he would not have made his will since Colonel Lullington had his last attack; and he probably never thought that she would be such an heiress, though I distinctly remember saying to him when I heard that her godfather was dangerously ill that she would be left well off.”

“ And was she? ”

“ Very well off indeed, as things go nowadays. He left her that big house and property which brings in something like seven or eight thousand a year; besides that, there’s a lot of shares and things.”

“ Worth about half to-day what he paid for them.”

“ Do you know what General Drawbridge told me he did? Well, it appears that Colonel Lullington was clever enough to see what the German Emperor meant to do—people laughed at him as an alarmist; but he sold out nearly every share he held early in the summer and put the proceeds on deposit in his bank. Wasn’t that clever of him? ”

“ Very clever. That’s the sort of man who dies just after such a stroke of shrewdness—I’ve noticed it for a long time. I’m very careful myself about wrapping up when I’ve had any unusual bit of luck. Well, there’s nothing more to be said, is there? ’’

“ Nothing—only, suppose Mark left no will? ”

“ Then, of course, we’ll have to apply to some Court or another to presume death or something of that sort.

Of course there could be no inquest because there was no body. I suppose it would be impossible to do anything in the way of shifting those awful rocks and stones and things.1’

Cecile shook her head.

“ You should have seen the place,” she said. “ I wonder you didn’t think of going to see the place, Rupert.”

It was his turn to shake his head; but there was no strong family likeness between his head-shake and hers.

“ I’ve no curiosity in that direction,” said he.

And that was the last of their conversation about poor Mark. Cecile, who had no idea that she had been so fond of Mark until Dr. Charwood had come to her on that dreadful morning, could not feel that she was much the better for Rupert’s visit.

The amount of Colonel Lullington’s property which, according to Lady Barston, had been bequeathed to Angela, was found to be about what she had told her brother it equalled. But her inheriting such an estate just when she had lost the man whom she was about to marry was regarded by many people as quite in harmony with the philosophy of Rupert Rowland, and of Hans Breitmann, as expressed in his ballad of “ Der Schnitzer.”

“ We finds a pank-note in der shtreet—
Next tay her pank ist preak;
We falls und knocks our outsides in
Ven ve a den-shtroke make.”

But there were others who thought more kindly of the ways of Providence as displayed in the sequence of incidents; and one of these less cynical people was that uncle of Angela’s who had always reproached her for her callousness—her heartlessness—in seeing him County-Courted—the verb was his—for a just debt, and ordered by an unsympathetic judge to pay up at the rate of five pounds a month or go to jail for contempt. This relative, whom, with his two sisters, she had maintained for several years, though depriving him of his hunters, thought that he clearly perceived the working of that mysterious Hand in so directing the chronology of the sad events that that dreadful incident at the rocks at Plassid Point took place before his niece had time to marry Mark Rowland. Had Colonel Lullington left his property to Angela and had Mark lived to marry Angela, goodness knows what complications might not have resulted; they might even have started spending the eight or ten thousand a year, keeping up that big house as it was meant to be kept up, and living happy ever after.

Captain Pollexfen, as this gentleman was called, had never thought so highly of Providence as he did on considering the dreadful possibilities that had been so adroitly averted all in a moment. He considered that the ease with which matters had been placed on a different footing was quite masterly; and his sisters, whose straitened means—supplied by Angela’s management of her father’s small property—prevented their having more than two holidays—neither of more than six weeks’ duration—in the course of the financial year, associated themselves with his pious musings on this matter, and prepared to enter upon the enjoyment of life on a more expensive scale than that which had previously regulated their household. These ladies had been coldly indignant—sulkily indignant—when they heard of their niece’s engagement some months earlier; they agreed that it was most inconsiderate of Angela to contemplate the taking of such a step as might involve the necessity for having a regular nurse for her invalid mother; up to that time Angela’s devotion had made another nurse unnecessary. But now they quite forgave her for her thoughtlessness in this particular; and even wept—in order that they might not stray from the truth in writing to Angela to tell her about their tears. But when they were made aware of the intentions of Angela respecting her fortune they were more than indignant, they were infuriated. Captain Pollexfen had been inspecting some highly recommended hunters, and had about decided upon the two which he meant to ride during the winter, and his sisters had had some books of patterns for materials for visiting frocks sent to them, and they were discussing the modes of the moment, and the possibility of their effective adaptation, when Angela’s letter came to them.

They knew that it would not be diplomatic to be infuriated in her presence—or, at any rate, to show that they were infuriated; but as they were separated from her by more than a hundred miles, there was no reason why they should not compare their impressions in their own terms now that they had the chance. They found that there was complete unanimity among themselves on this point. They were breathless after five minutes.

“ Madness—sheer madness I ” was the summing-up of the man. “ She should be looked after by her relations. Oh, these infernal, narrow-minded British Islands! In France they have their conseil de Jamille to set back such outrageous things as this; but in these so-called British Islands a girl can make ducks and drakes of a million without anyone being able to call her to account for it! Shameful! Shameful! Good heavens! A hospital! Thousands and thousands thrown away upon strangers! Flung into the sea! And mind you, it isn’t as if she could get anything out of it. They don’t give women baronetcies for things of this sort; there’d be some sense in it if a baronetcy were behind it. But nothing-—nothing—charity, pure and simple! I tell you, there’s nothing whatever behind it—it’s all empty charity—no return for it all! Oh, it makes one’s blood boil! ”

“ I thought better of Angela—indeed I did,” said a sister. “ In spite of her treatment of us—allowing us the merest trifle more than what she kept for her mother and herself, and letting poor Edwin to be County-Courted —I thought well of her. She was so young and uninformed; I believed that she would improve if she married the right man; but now I see that I was wrong. She could never have known the value of money—that’s perfectly clear! ”

“ She called poor Edwin a spendthrift when we appealed to her to save him from being County-Courted,” moaned the other sister—she was the first to reach the moaning stage of the council. “ A spendthrift! I should like to know what Edwin ever did that would compare with this act of hers. What does she say? ”—referring to the letter which they had been crumpling in turn—“ yes, here’s the paragraph; ‘ it will cost me about fifteen thousand pounds the first year ’—I knew I had seen it somewhere—fifteen thousand—think of it—flung into the sea—no chance of ever seeing a penny of it again! ”

“ That’s it! ” cried Edwin. “ It’s not like as if it was put into a mine that may not pay anything for years but suddenly comes out all right and makes the shareholders millionaires—that’s what I’ve been hoping for the Boksberg for some time past; but there’s that girl simply flinging fifteen thousand into the gutter-down the drain—and that, mind you, only for a beginning. Those hospitals have the maw of sharks-— ravening sharks. Look at the expenditure of some of them—monstrous! ”

“ Monstrous! and are we supposed to stand here dumb while she makes a fool of herself? ” asked the elder sister, whose name was Susannah.

“ Of herself—and us—us! ” cried Edwin.

“ If she thinks that, she makes a great mistake,” said the second sister, whose name was Hannah. “ If she thinks that we can so easily forget our duty, she makes another. We will not take this lying down; we will show her that we know what is due to ourselves; as her nearest relations, next to her mother, it is clearly our duty to look after this poor, misguided girl to prevent her from throwing her money down the-”

“ You will go to her, Edwin; it may not yet be too late. You can tell her what people will say,” put in Miss Susannah. “ You remind her that people do not take the most charitable view of such folly as this of hers would be—that they will only be too ready to misconstrue her act, and imagine—well, all sorts of things.”

“ Yes, all sorts of things,” said Miss Hannah mysteriously.

The brother looked from one to the other. He was quite willing to take any hint that might be offered to him by either, but he could not improvise, and he knew it.

“ All sorts of things,” he repeated feebly, and then looked for further instructions.

“ Just so; you leave it at that for her,” said Miss Hannah. “ There’s no need for you to go into particulars—going into particulars spoils the best of cases.”

What she had in her mind was the case at the County Court. She knew that if the judge had not gone so persistently into the particulars of that case, her brother might not have had to pay his five pounds every month.

“ I think that we can trust Edwin,” said the other sister, in a tone of voice which might lead one to fancy that she really did think so, but with the accompaniment of a look that suggested unlimited doubt in Edwin.

However, they trusted Edwin—up to a certain point, and mistrusted him from that point onward; and Edwin went on his mission to Angela.

He arrived at an inopportune moment. Mrs. Inman was feeling better than she had felt for some time. She was able to leave her room and come downstairs, so that Angela was left quite free to attend to the work being done for her at the Manor house, which was fast becoming a hospital. In these circumstances, Uncle Edwin, as he became on entering the house, saw very little of Angela, whom he wished to see, and a great deal of his sister, with whom he had no more than a distantly fraternal desire to confer.

Mrs. Inman had no head for figures representing monetary values or financial considerations. That was one of the most delightful things about her, her family had always thought, until Angela, who was just the opposite, took over the management of the little property, and put a limit to the depredations of the family upon the remainder. After that Edwin ceased to regard his sister’s weakness as an amiable trait; and he tried to make her see that she should put her foot down and keep Angela in her proper place, which he was ready to define. But whether he succeeded at that time or not, Angela continued to manage the property.

“ It’s not the property that she’s managing; it’s you,” cried Edwin to Mrs. Inman long ago; and now when he was left alone with her, Angela being away all day, he complained bitterly that his sister had not succeeded better in managing Angela.

“ She does just what she pleases,” he mourned. “You seem to have no control over her—absolutely none. I am her nearest male relative, yet she never once consulted me about this fortune that was left to her—never once.”

“ She never consulted me either,” said Mrs. Inman. “ I suppose that was because she knows that I have no head for figures. Do you mind closing the window entirely, Edwin; I’m not sure that there isn’t a little draught.”

He closed the window by the inch that it remained open and then resumed his plaint.

“ If we were only in France we could very soon bring Angela to her senses,” he said, with great firmness.

“ I have been told that I should be much better if I could always winter in the South of France,” said the lady dimly.

“ There you are,” he cried, with a note of triumph in his voice. “ Now that she has come in for money you should have insisted on it. You should insist on it even now; but you should do it at once, or there will be no money left to do it with. If Angela cannot go with you, I might manage to spare the time to take you myself. Nice or Cannes is the place for you. There’s a good train service to Monte Carlo from both. What? ”

“ Would you mind ringing the bell, Edwin? I told 198

Catherine to let me have my sago early to-day, but she seems to have forgotten,” replied Mrs. Inman.

Edwin never made any more substantial progress than this toward getting the co-operation of his sister for the advancement of his claims to a share in the dispersal of his niece’s fortune. And however determined he may have been on leaving his home to talk plainly and convincingly to Angela on this matter in which he was greatly interested, he somehow felt, in the presence of his niece, a good deal less determined. Rightly or wrongly, he acquired from the deportment of his niece—from an occasional remark which she let drop—the notion that she was strongly of the opinion that, at the crisis which was at hand in the history of the country, everyone should be prepared to make some sacrifice. Now, for himself he had no objection in the world to recognize the general principle of people being ready to make a sacrifice for the salvation of their country, yet he had no particular desire to go so far as Jephthah’s Daughter or Iphigenia in this direction. And when his niece expressed a wish to know if he did not think with her that he and his sisters could manage to dispense with the services of their gardener, a young man of enlist able age, he made up his mind that there was no chance of his mission to his niece being crowned with success. The girl had clearly lost her head over that hospital scheme of her devising, and the sooner he got out of the radius of activity, so to speak, of the girl’s searchlight questions concerning the necessity for making sacrifices—reducing one’s way of living and so forth—the better chance he would have of retaining all that he had got out of her.

He returned to his sisters one afternoon, after talking to Angela’s mother for a full half-hour, on the advantages of the French conseil de famille, and of shredded wheat as a comestible for an invalid. He closed the door and opened a window an inch at the lady’s request during the first quarter of an hour, and closed the window but opened the door an inch during the second; and then he rang the bell for a maid to bring a flexible hot-water bottle for her feet.

He felt that his visit had been an unprofitable one, and his sisters gathered as much from his criticism of the cookery of their household at dinner on the evening of his return.

CHAPTER XX

WHEN it was known that Angela Inman had gathered together quite an army of workmen at Lullington Manor and that the old house was being transformed into a Red Cross Hospital, she was overwhelmed by offers of help from all quarters. Ladies who had “ managed ” a good many enterprises ostensibly of a charitable character, and some of them touching the edge of charity in a fashionable form, too, put themselves in immediate communication with her. A few who had thought it well to snub her during former years because she had ventured to differ from them on some points of management, seemed ready to forgive her, and let bygones be bygones, in view of a brilliant future of co-operation.

And men—Angela had always found plenty of men who were ready to be friendly to her, but never so many as opened a correspondence with her just now, or sought to do so. There were rough-haired bachelors getting on in years, and wire-haired widowers, there were smooth-faced sleek and sallow boys of the old brigade, and there was more than one nondescript, with the billiard-room title of “ the Captain ”—adepts in the art of spreading ten hairs across bumpy brows so as to make them seem bushy—all well-meaning and not without hope of becoming intimately associated with a “ romance in real life ” of the local newspaper. Angela might easily have had half a dozen secretaries, as many superintendents, and even a larger number of treasurers of her hospital. Three fathers of promising young fellows just entering the medical profession were prepared to offer the services of their sons just “ to enable them to get some experience of hospital work,” they explained, almost in identical words, and one father of a fully qualified young man with no less than six months’ experience aboard a Royal Mail fleet was prepared to guarantee his son’s acceptance of the post of house surgeon.

These were some of the approaches made to her in one direction, and from another direction there came quite as many. The applications she received from fully disqualified nurses surprised her, and all the more because of the certainty on the part of the applicants that their disqualifications were actually recommendations. How any young woman could fancy she was making an effective appeal to her for employment on the ground that she supposed “the hunting would be pretty rotten this year,” amazed her. But no less than three applications to nurse were built on this foundation. One young lady wanted to have a room allotted to her in the hospital in exchange for which—and free meals—she would recite to the patients for an hour daily. Another told her that though she had never done any nursing before, yet she felt something within her that told her that she would just love it.

One mother wrote to her begging to take on her daughter in any capacity, on the ground that nobody could do anything with her at home.

It was, however, Mrs. Morrison, the amateur manager of concerts and things in the neighbourhood of Churlington, who undertook to manage Angela.

She appeared one morning in her motor at the fine Norman porch of Lullington Manor, and Angela received her with apologies in the old billiard-room, which was being turned into an operating theatre, and rapidly approaching completion in accordance with the aseptic design of Dr. Charwood.

“ My dear Angela,” cried the visitor, “ I hope you have not taken too much upon you.”

“ So do I,” said Angela. “ I had no idea that there would be so much to do. It appears that there is no more dangerous place for anyone to live in than a house; and beautiful old houses are the worst of all. Everything about a room is deadly, from a carved cedar ceiling down to a parquet floor.”

“ That’s all nonsense, all the fads of the new school of doctors. There’s nothing in it, believe me,” said Mrs. Morrison airily.

“I’m not so sure of that,” said Angela, smiling.

“ But I can assure you that there is nothing in it,” said Mrs. Morrison. “ It is all that antiseptic nonsense. I detest the very smell of an antiseptic.”

“ Oh, antiseptic surgery was out of date long ago,” cried Angela in all the confidence of newly acquired knowledge. “ It is all aseptic nowadays.”

“ I’m sure that the principle is the same, and take my word for it, it’s a fad. But I don’t want to discuss that point. I only came to you to make certain that you are getting the right people about you for this business. The right tone—that’s what you must have at the outset. It will do you no good in the world unless there is the right social tone about it at the start.”

“ I don’t want it to do me good, I want it to do the soldiers good.”

“ Oh, that’s all very well in its way, of course; I should be sorry to leave the dear soldiers out of it altogether—noble fellows! We are all proud of them, and would be ready to make any amount of sacrifices for them. That is just why I have come to you. I know you don’t understand these things, Angela—it’s not right that a young girl should.”

“I’m getting to know all about a hospital, Mrs. Morrison—every day I learn something additional.”

“That’s all right, no doubt; technical details are interesting enough in their own way; but all the technical details in the world will not advance the hospital socially.”

“ I’ve never thought about the social aspects of the hospital; I don’t mean it to be anything but just a hospital for wounded soldiers.”

“ Then you will miss the chance of your life, dear. Ah, I feared as much. Now, Angela, leave this in my hands, I will see you through with it—we must all make sacrifices at this time. I will be your Commandant; with a few slight alterations the uniform can be made quite artistic; and I have already made up my staff— here are their names—all in the right set—not an outsider among them.”

She handed Angela, with a smile of the utmost geniality, a slip of paper containing names in one column, and opposite each name a descriptive line.

“ Mrs. Morrison . . . Commandant.

“ Lady Blagrove . . . Assistant Commandant.

“ Miss Morrison . . . Deputy-Assistant Commandant.

“ Mrs. Thwaites . . . Sub-Deputy-Assistant Commandant.

“ Mrs. Thurles . . . Commandant of Stores Department.

“ Miss Adelaide . . . Deputy Commandant of Stores Department.

“ Miss Effie Colvin . . . Deputy-Assistant Commandant of Stores Department.

“ Mrs. Bob Copeland . . . Sub-Deputy-Assistant Commandant of Stores Department.

“ All the above are entitled to wear the full dress uniform of a Red Cross Commandant, with variations in the form of stars to denote exact rank, and all are entitled to the use of three motors, and to be saluted when out of doors by all ranks in the Army. Convalescents, should they be seated, to rise on their approach.”

Angela read this document and handed it back to her visitor.

“ I’m glad you approve of it, my dear,” said the visitor. “ You will see that we are all in the right set; and, mind you, if you like your name to appear with ours, I am sure we can quite easily manage it. Oh, there would be no difficulty about it in the world. I know all about getting up these things. I was on the Committee of the Ohio long ago. Oh, you could have no idea of the fun we had.”

“ I’m really very sorry, Mrs. Morrison,” said Angela. “ I’m very sorry that you have put yourself to so much trouble to no purpose; but I am not starting a club.”

“ Of course not, but you could make it as pleasant as a club if you went about it as I should direct you,” said Mrs. Morrison. “ You cannot get on without us. Of course, I do not suggest that you only receive officers whose names have been passed by the Committee; I would arrange to waive this point, though Lady Blagrove was very insistent on it—in fact, between ourselves, she threatened to resign if it was not carried.

Perhaps she was right; it would be rather absurd, wouldn’t it, for us to be nursing officers who were not in the same rank of life as ourselves? I don’t think that I would like my daughter to do so. Still, we might arrange to exclude only those who have been raised from the ranks—rank outsiders, we call them.”

“ Really, Mrs. Morrison, I hardly know what to say to you,” said Angela. “ You have so evidently been misinformed on the subject of my intentions that I— I—well, I don’t know what to say to you, except that this is to be a hospital—a serious hospital for soldiers —soldiers in the ranks—I don’t care how low down in the ranks, and I don’t care in what rank of life they were before joining the Army.’

“ Good gracious! this is Socialism, pure and simple! ”

“ I don’t care what it is, so long as it is pure and simple, Mrs. Morrison. Mrs. Thorburn has kindly promised to act as the head of the hospital—I don’t care whether she is called Matron or Commandant.”

“ Mrs. Thorburn. Oh, well, of course the Broms- groves took her up; but still——”

“ She is one of the most highly qualified nurses in England, and that is sufficient qualification in my eyes and in the eyes of Dr. Charwood. We shall have a complete staff of paid nurses, and a fully qualified surgeon of experience, with Dr. Charwood as consultant and operator, unless his duties elsewhere will not allow of his giving us the necessary attention. That’s all that our hospital is to be—a hospital and nothing more.” “ But, my dear Miss Inman, where do we come in? ” “ You—you mean-? ”

“ I mean us—we—the ladies. I never heard of a hospital being run without the help of ladies.”

“ I hope that we shall all be ladies, Mrs. Morrison; but we shall be nurses in the first instance. Alas! I cannot say ‘ we’ for I shall be excluded; I am not a qualified nurse, so I am shut out from serving as I should like—all that I am qualified to do in connection with the hospital is to pay for everything and to keep the books. I cannot even get taken on as one of the cooks, not because I cannot cook, but because I cannot guarantee that I shall attend every day, having to look after my mother at home. Now that’s all that I have to say.”

“ And all that I have to say is, that your hospital may be a success from a hospital standpoint, but as a social institution it will be a failure. You will never get any of your portraits put into the papers, and where will you be then? ”

“ Out of the papers, I suppose. Why does a hen cross the road? Or the miller wear a white hat? ”

Angela was laughing now. She was glad that she was able to laugh; her laugh pulled her back from the pitfall of indignation to which she was being driven by the managing lady before her.

“ Why does the—the—the miller? What on earth do you mean, Angela?” cried Mrs. Morrison in a half-frightened whisper.

“ I am revealing the obvious—that’s all, Mrs. Morrison,” replied Angela. “You asked me where should we be if we were not in the papers, and I said naturally, out of the papers. We are not starting this hospital for the benefit of the papers or for our own benefit either—only for the wounded or the sick.”

“ That is the funniest excuse I ever heard brought forward for starting a hospital,” said Mrs. Morrison. “ Well, you may have the satisfaction of feeling that you are concerned in an innovation.”

“ Well, after all, there’s something in that,” said Angela. “ Would you care to see how we are arranging everything? We have thirty-five rooms being prepared and furnished. This is to be the operating theatre.”

“ A theatre? Oh, that’s something! ” Mrs. Morrison was brightening up. “ A theatre? I’ll produce some of our pieces for you here. Where is the stage to be placed? Oh, obviously between those two doors. I suppose the dressing-rooms will be on the left? ”

“ There will be a room for dressings, I’ve no doubt, but that’s not just the same as a dressing-room, is it? ” said Angela.

“ I’m sure I can’t tell. But I had no idea you would be so sensible as to have a theatre. Marjorie will be so pleased. Really Marjorie is quite as good an actress as some that you see in Town. The poor girl was dreadfully afraid that this horrid war would prevent her from getting up any play during the winter—that’s why she agreed to come in with us in your hospital. Won’t she be glad, just, when I tell her that you have arranged for a theatre! Mind you don’t allow Muriel Hilbroke to have anything to do with it. If you do, you will make a great mistake. She thinks of no one but herself—takes all the star parts, and stage-manages as well—manages? Mismanages, I should rather say. Now promise me that Muriel Hilbroke will have nothing to do with your theatre.”

“ I think I may safely give you that promise.”

“ And that you will not produce a play here without first consulting my Marjorie—I’m sure you know how clever she is.”

“ And I think I may also go as far as that.”

“ Then my morning has not been wasted after all.”

“ No; but mine will have been unless I get to work without a moment’s delay.”

Angela was getting impatient. She perceived that if she were to allow Mrs. Morrison to talk much longer she might begin to ask some inconvenient questions that would tend to shatter the whole fabric of the theatre which she had built up for herself from the moment that Angela had mentioned the word. Angela would have time to prepare her defences against Mrs. Morrison’s attack as soon as Mrs. Morrison should learn from some of her more fully informed friends that there was a great difference between a playhouse and the operating theatre of a hospital.

“ But I’m really sorry that you cannot see how greatly to your advantage it would be if we were to run the whole concern for you on proper lines,” said the visitor at the door. “ Everyone would be talking about us, and I could promise you that your portrait should appear among ours in the best illustrated papers; our afternoon teas would become the feature of the winter, and there would be a line of motor cars from here to the entrance gates. Think of that. You know as well as I do that there’s no such good advertisement as a string of cars for noble, self-sacrificing and truly patriotic work. Do think it over again. You would look simply lovely in the uniform of a Sub-Deputy-Assistant Commandant, with one star, and a not too-red Red Cross—it’s not everybody’s red, you know, so some of us have made up our minds to wear it in our own shade of pink —a nice Liberty tint—rose Du Barry is the one that suits me. Do think it over—I can see you in that fetching uniform—and ’phone me to come to your help. What do you say to an inaugural lunch? I could get the best people.”

“I’ll not forget what you say. Good-bye,” cried Angela from the porch, as Mrs. Morrison’s chauffeur started his engine.

She returned to where a young clerk of the works was awaiting her decision on an arrangement of sinks. It was a come-down for her after listening to Mrs. Morrison aeroplaning about her projects, and watching her looping the loop over the theatre. Mrs. Morrison’s conversation was the colloquial equivalent of the amateur air-man, who has plenty of confidence in himself, but who makes the people who are watching his feats of gyration a little uneasy. Angela had a sense of an aching neck when her visitor left her, and she was glad to have a chance of conversation that involved some study of the surface of the earth and a few feet beneath it. The young clerk was a thorough master of the science of the Sink, and in the course of a quarter of an hour Angela had become convinced of the fact that science is (paradoxically) working on its highest plane the further it goes beneath the surface of the earth, and that the science of the Sink is the most elevating of all, as it is the most important to humanity.

During the early days of her entering upon her work, she had heard a pretty liberal exchange of views between Dr. Charwood and Mrs. Thorburn on the subject of hospital nursing as a fad of fashion extremely difficult to deal with and to dispose of effectively, so mixed up as it was with a genuine desire to be helpful on the part of a large number of women of all classes. They had both had ample experience of that class of nurse who has one eye on the bandage and the other upon the newspaper camera, and they had both had experience of the effect that she has upon the working of a hospital.

They had both had experience of the ornamental nurse who has such influential connections that she must be tolerated for the sake of the contributions that come from her friends; but they agreed that, after all, the sincere and devoted Red Cross workers so far outnumbered the others, and the doctors were so discriminating, that very little positive mischief was done by the unqualified attendance of the poseuse. Of course, it was funny to see how seriously she took herself, seeming to fancy that the future of the hospital depended upon her posing to the man with the camera; but the mission of a hospital nurse was not exclusively to be funny. On the whole, however, this person was no more than a minor cause of irritation to those whose energies were constantly strained in the direction of efficiency.

Angela had visited a hospital for convalescents which had been started by a charitable lady in a small town in East Nethershire, and the Matron had told her how the voluntary helpers who had been very enthusiastic at first, fancying that they should have nothing to do but pose as the Lady with the Lamp and be photographed in that attitude for their friends, gradually absented themselves when they found that they had to scrub floors and wash basins for four hours at a time, and their places were taken by a small paid staff who did all that was required of them with regularity and efficiency.

“ We started with six lady cooks and nine nurses,” said the matron; “ but the kitchen resolved itself into a cooking class, for none of the cooks knew anything of cooking, and any pretext was good enough for the ladies with the lamps upstairs to stay away. The Lady with the Lamp! My dear Miss Inman, there was not one of them that could hold a lamp without spilling the oil. At last the time came when no nurse attended except when she had nothing else to do.”

Happily the matron was an able woman, and by her devotion to her duties prevented her hospital from suffering; but Angela made up her mind that hers would not be liable to run such a risk through the negligence of amateurs with no sense of their responsibilities.

But during these weeks, when every train seemed to be an ambulance train, bringing the sick and the wounded from France, Angela visited many Red Cross hospitals, and she only hoped that hers might approach in efficiency the work which she could see was being done in nearly all of them. Among them the organization was so admirable and the lady workers had been so weeded out, so to speak, that only the flower of the untrained band remained on the staff, and these showed all the disciplined intelligence that has made the work of the Red Cross the admiration of the world for nearly half a century.

CHAPTER XXI

ANGELA saw what the hospital should be, and Mrs. Thorburn knew by experience how far one could go in the direction of the ideal.

“ You mustn’t forget that you are aiming at the achievement of the noblest purpose of humanity,” said Mrs. Thorburn. “ If there is any higher object to live for in the world than to help the suffering, I do not know what it is.”

“ When I think of the responsibility of such an undertaking as I have attempted, I sometimes feel overwhelmed,” said Angela. “ Sleepless nights—I’m sometimes astonished that I should ever be so bold as to attempt it. But I started upon it in all the lightness of ignorance as to what it meant. I suppose that no one who sets about it realizes all that it means.”

“ And a good many who keep at it all their lives have but the vaguest notion of what it means,” said Mrs. Thorburn. “ I must confess that, even now, I cannot allow myself to reflect upon it. It is like taking over the work of the Creator. They lay before us a dead man and tell us to make him live. That is really what our work amounts to. I tell you that I have seen dead men brought to life again in a hospital. They were practically dead. Five years ago they would have been looked on as dead—far beyond the power of any skill of man to revive. Fifteen years ago, the thought of bringing back life to such would have been reckoned the fancy of a madman—fifty years ago, of an impious madman. I’ll tell you what it was like: it was as if the life was a shy thing that had escaped from its cage and was lying quite away from it, and we were left to try to coax it to come back. I tell you that some nights sitting alone with the shape that had once been a man, lying like clay on the bed, I have felt conscious of the existence of life —Life—the subtle essence that had escaped from its shelter—in another part of the room; and I felt that I was trying with all my might to coax it back—a bird and its cage—that was what it was like. The frail little thing had fluttered out and was watching from some nook behind the curtains my efforts to get it to return by sprinkling the seed that it liked on the floor and doing the other tricky things that occur to one. I tell you plainly, Angela, that I have been conscious of the instant of the return of the life to the body after the two had been separated; and what is more, I have known others who had the same impression. Call it imagination—what you please—supersensitiveness—it does not matter, the feeling was there. I remember one nurse—the best nurse I ever knew—when I came to relieve her early in the morning, told me in a whisper that she had been troubled all night by the presence of a butterfly in the room—or it might have been a moth, she said. I had the same impression after I had been there for an hour. The impression ceased a little later, and when the doctor came, he said, ‘ You have nursed that man back to life between you.’ ”

“ Terrible—terrible—the responsibility you must feel! ” said Angela. “ And there are women who accept lightly such responsibilities! ’’

“ There are; but do not judge them too hastily.

There are many who seem to go about their duties mechanically—even, as one might say, callously, but who are as devoted to their work, to their mission—their calling—it should be a calling—an irresistible calling, if it is to be of any service to humanity—as if they had no thought outside it. Many of them have really no thought outside it.”

Many such chats Angela had with Mrs. Thorburn while the hospital was being completed, and the result was that, by the time it was ready, she had come to know very intimately both Mrs. Thorburn and Dr. Charwood.

But intimately though she became acquainted with both of them, she got no inkling of the secret that was shared by the two. More than a year earlier, she had had a fancy that Dr. Charwood was falling in love, if he had not done so already, with Mrs. Thorburn; but now that she saw them together almost every day, she noticed nothing in their association to cause her to remember that she had ever had such a fancy. It would have been difficult for Angela to notice anything of the sort, for both her friends were so absorbed in their work that nothing outside it seemed to them to exist in the world. Mrs. Thorburn’s little girl, Adela, had been sent with her nurse to visit the Bromsgroves, and for three months she, who had been inseparable from her mother, never so much as saw her. Mrs. Thorburn had truly cut herself off from every interest in life except the one, and that one she allowed to absorb her utterly. She never exchanged a word with Dr. Charwood except in connection with her work and his; but, possibly, they were at times made conscious of the fact that the work which absorbed them both was drawing them closer together than any other interest could have done.

The one matter upon which there was not perfect agreement between Angela and her friends was in regard to what she called drudgery. She had heard of the discipline of hospitals compelling probationary nurses to scrub floors and blacklead grates and perform—perhaps for years—the duties of the charwoman and the lodging-house slavey fresh from the workhouse; and she made up her mind that she would have none of her nurses wasting their time and destroying their sensibilities over such forms of work. Mrs. Thorburn, who had gone through her years of scrubbing at the hospital where she was trained, was inclined to believe that the floorscrubbing test was as good a one as any to which a girl could be subjected to prove whether she was really in earnest in her vocation. She had known of girls who had thought it would be a nice thing to be a nurse, but who, when they found that they had to go down on their knees with a bucket of water and a brush of bristles and a cake of soap, three times a day, had found that they were not meant to be nurses.

“ It is supposed that the scrubbing weeds out the less persevering of the aspirants,” she said. “ But, really, I am not prepared to say that it is a perfect test.”

“ I consider it the worst test—the most ridiculous test that could be devised,” said Angela. “ There is nothing humiliating in scrubbing a floor—quite the contrary. I respect a charwoman who does it properly. But as a test of whether a girl will make a good nurse or not, it is as absurd as making a medical student clean out a row of stables every morning to see whether he is fitted to be a doctor or not, or insisting on an architect’s apprentice acting as a builder’s labourer for a year. My own opinion is, that the reason why we have so many heavy-handed and noisy nurses is that the floor-scrubbing and other drudgery have made them so. Floorscrubbing is excellent training for a charwoman; but a hospital should not be a training school for charwomen but for nurses.”

“ I confess that I have now and again had my doubts about drudgery being so valuable a branch of education,” said Mrs. Thorburn. “ But you should see the sort of probationers we have had sometimes—girls who seemed to think that the life of a nurse was made up of talking about their young men in a large and well-furnished club-room, and walking in the parks in a becoming uniform by the side of these young men. These are the ones who decline the ordeal of the scrubbing-brush.”

“ I can understand that; but why have so medieval an ordeal? Surely a month’s experience of such probationers should be enough to make the authorities pack them off, just as a month’s experience of the right sort should let them see that they were the right sort. Why, if a girl knew anything at all, she could confound the authorities on their own ground. I watched one of the nurses washing a floor the other day. She had a pail of hot water, a scrubbing-brush and a floor-cloth. She wet the brush and soaped it and applied it to the floor with splendid vigour; then she dipped the brush in the water and in a second all the water in the pail was filthy; but she dipped the floor-cloth in it all the same, and, after wringing it out, applied it to the floor. Was that sanitary? Is it in accordance with scientific teaching to take the insanitary dirt off one part of the floor and apply it to another? And yet that floor was being done under the eagle eye of the matron. The pail of filthy water served for a hundred square feet. And at another hospital I saw a room dusted in precisely the way rooms have been dusted in England ever since dusting came into practice. The dust was simply dislodged—it had been lying quite passive in many places, but it was dislodged by the duster. What became of it then? A small portion clung to the duster, and this the girl shook out of the window. Half of it was blown back into the room and the rest of it went through the open window of the room beneath. Do you call that dusting representative of the progress of sanitary science up to date? ”

Mrs. Thorburn laughed.

“ We shall have something better here at any rate,” she said. “ Nature may abhor a vacuum, but certainly not a vacuum cleaner: it is the most reasonable way of removing matter that is in a wrong place.”

“ And yet it took I don’t know how many thousand years of house-dwelling before anyone hit upon it, and even now it has not displaced the domestic duster, even when the duster is used under the noses of half a dozen doctors.”

“ This hospital of yours is giving you the finest education imaginable,” said Mrs. Thorburn. “ It has set you about solving the domestic problems of ages. And how Dr. Charwood backs you up! ”

“ Of course he does,” cried Angela. “ Wasn’t he delighted when I decreed that no washing should be done here except in running water? ”

“ Weren’t we all delighted? I, for one, agree with him in thinking that half the diseases from which we suffer are due to the basin and jug of daily life.”

“ Nature never intended us to wash in puddles, but in running brooks; and what is a basin of water?—a gallon, and when we sponge our faces in it in the morning, we squeeze out the sponge into the same water and then dip it in the water that we have squeezed out of it and apply it to our faces. Then we rub our faces with a towel that has been hanging fully exposed to all the dust of our sleeping-room, and we think how refreshing is a really good wash! ”

All this Mrs. Thorburn had heard before, and cordially agreed with Angela that domestic sanitation was in its infancy; it was, however, a sturdy infant and it was crying out lustily for what it hadn’t yet got, and it wouldn’t be satisfied until it got it all. Angela Inman, it seemed, had appointed herself its nurse, and she affirmed that Dr. Charwood must regard himself as one of its parents: she hoped, she said, that his name would be associated with it when the hints that he gave respecting its treatment materialized.

Dr. Charwood was delighted to have at least a chance of seeing his ideas take practical form in this hospital. Every room was to be a triumph of asepticism, with its installation of vacuum cleaners, its high scheme of ventilation and its running water: it was practically impossible for any ablutions, even of the simplest kind, to take place within the walls except in running water. A dozen lesser arrangements on an equally scientific basis were suggested by Dr. Charwood, and carried out by Angela, aided by her enthusiastic young clerk of works; and they went so far in their plot as to speak—with bated breath at first, but afterward quite openly—of the abolition of the charwoman. They agreed that there was little use in destroying the power of mischief of a million or two of lesser microbes, so long as this greater one, though only a unit, was allowed to survive; but never would Angela tolerate, under any conditions, within her walls, the degrading attitude of subservience of the floor cleaner to the floor. Whatever her religion might be, her kneeling to the floor which she was about to cleanse, was prohibited. The best cleaned floors in the world are the decks of a ship, but no one kneels on a deck in order to cleanse it; and seamen rarely suffer from “ housemaid’s knee.”

The only misgiving that Angela had in connection with her scheme was in respect of her mother. Mrs. Inman [nee Pollexfen), as has already been mentioned, was an invalid, and Angela had been her nurse for several years. How then was she to give up her nursing to attend to her nurses ? She felt that she would be in the position of the young woman who became a hospital nurse in order to escape from the tedium of a home of invalids.

Her mother became immediately prostrated at the idea of her daughter being forced to reduce her home service; and during his brief visit, her thoughtful uncle had referred several times to her projected neglect of what he defined as the plain duty of a daughter. Captain Pollexfen had some fully matured ideas on the subject of a daughter’s duty.

And really, after her mother’s daily murmurs, Angela began to feel that she was not behaving quite as she should in regard to her mother; and that she might not be able to justify the attention she was giving to her hospital if her mother were to suffer thereby.

She said something to this effect to the doctor—not without the accompaniment of a sigh—but the doctor looked at her with a peculiar smile, such as she had never seen on his face before—a most unprofessional smile, she considered it; not the bedside smile of cheerful, cheering sympathy with the tale of suffering offered to his ears—no, rather the derisive smile of the agnostic, if not actually of the unbeliever.

“ My dear Miss Inman,” he said after a thoughtful pause, “ I wonder if it has ever occurred to you that you are disposed to take your mother’s invalidism too seriously.”

“ Is there any other way to take it? ” she asked. “For more than three years she has been in my care —and yours too, in a lesser degree, for I don’t remember that you were ever fond of prescribing things for her; you always said that there was no immediate danger and that with cheerful nursing——”

“ Oh, please do not repeat that absurd medical jargon; it goes to my heart to have to deliver myself of it in cases like that of your mother, so please do not repeat it to make me more fully aware, if that were possible, of its feebleness. Now, look here; you have accused me, very rightly, I hope, of not prescribing any definite treatment for your mother in her many illnesses. Well, I’m about to do so now. I prescribe for her treatment the utmost neglect. I want you to give the utmost attention to neglecting her for a time, and see if the result is not a distinct improvement in her condition.”

“ Do you mean to suggest that——”

“ My dear young lady, don’t mistake my meaning, I beg of you. Don’t fancy that I mean to suggest that there’s nothing the matter with your mother. There is something very definite the matter with her. She suffers from the belief that something is the matter with her, and that, I can assure you, is sometimes as bad as a real illness. It is a difficult malady to deal with, especially when the patient is surrounded by sympathetic friends—but one sympathetic daughter is sometimes quite enough to cause its development into what’s called valetudinarianism. It can only be cured by a thorough course of systematic neglect, and that is what I now prescribe for your mother.”

“ Dr. Charwood, if anything were to happen to her —Neglect? do you really mean that she, properly speaking, is not an invalid at all?—that I have been nursing her without there being any necessity for it? ”

“ If you don’t mind, I should like to defer my reply to you for three months, and that means that at the end of three months there will be no need for me to make any reply to you.”

“ It is possible to interpret that in two ways.”

“ I only meant it to be taken in one, and that is that Mrs. Inman will—well, that she will not have suffered if you transfer to your hospital all the attention that you were in the habit of giving to her, and a little bit extra.”

“ And I shall have nothing to reproach myself with? You can promise me that? ”

“ If you do not allow her reproaches to be a cause for self-reproach. I fear that you must expect something of the sort from her—it is part of the malady from which she suffers, to fancy herself neglected.”

“ But if I neglect her, will she not have every reason to believe herself neglected? ”

“ Undoubtedly; but the cure of her complaint will come when there is no one at home to complain to. The truth is, Miss Inman, that your mother has been in the enjoyment of ill-health simply because of the sympathy she gets from you. It is sympathy that feeds her form of hysteria. It will be for you to starve it out of her system. She will no longer enjoy ill-health when it ceases to make her the centre of sympathetic inquiry. That’s all that I have to say to you. Make your mind easy about her. Make your hospital your first care and your mother your second, and I promise you that no cure effected within these walls will be as complete as hers.”

Their conversation took place in the porch of Lullington Manor, now Lullington Hospital; the doctor’s motor was waiting for him, and before she could make any further protest he had disappeared through the entrance gates.

Angela watched him thoughtfully—doubtfully. Her mind was not quite set at rest on the subject of her mother. She had become so accustomed to think of her mother as an invalid that it came as a great shock to her to have it so much as suggested in her hearing that she was one of the numerous race of malades imaginaires. When one has, after years of patient self-devotion, won a reputation as a chronic invalid, it is very difficult to divest oneself of the interest that attaches to such a condition of life; and the members of one’s own family are the most tenacious of one’s fame as a sufferer. But the doctor had spoken, and the hospital was very dear to Angela’s heart. She made up her mind that she would not neglect her hospital; but she would keep an eye on her mother all the same. She would not have allowed that she was in the position of Sir Joshua’s David Garrick, with Comedy pulling in one direction and Tragedy in the opposite. But that was what was in her mind—that admirable picture.

She thought a little more about that picture and its details, and then began to ask herself if indeed it might not be possible that her position did resemble, that of the central figure—if indeed she was not being drawn in one direction by Tragedy and in another by Comedy. She was led into a train of thought that made her feel uneasy.

Tragedy—could any situation be more tragical than that of the soldiers lying wounded by the act of the insane, insensate braggart who was leaving his hoof marks all over Europe? This was Tragedy in its most dreadful form.

Comedy. Was it not Moliere who imparted the truest spirit of Comedy to a play called Le Malade Imaginaire?

CHAPTER XXII

THE last of the workmen had left the building; and their final act had been to hang at one end of the Convalescent Ward a picture of the man to whose memory the work was to be dedicated. Hugh Brookman, the portrait painter, had been an intimate friend of Mark Rowland, and had made sketches of him during a yachting cruise the previous year; from these he had composed a very fine, full-length picture which he sent from his studio in Elm Tree Road, Chelsea, to Angela, in happy remembrance of a day gone by. Where should such a picture be hung? There was, she knew, only one wall on which it could appear, and when the men had placed it there, and had left the building, she stood alone for a long time looking up at the face that smiled gravely down upon her.

“ It was not to be,” she said. “ We were not to meet happiness coming to us from the direction that we looked for it; but it will come to us from another. Look down, dearest, look down and see every day the work that you have done—the work that you will do, and you will know that you have made me happy.”

It was all done. Philip Charwood had brought Sir John Howard to inspect the house—Sir John, the head and heart of Red Cross Hospitality—the great surgeon whose genius for organization seems to be the result of his devotion to the study of the finest result of constructive organization, the human organism— the man whose adventurous imagination is Celtic while his methods are those of the Sassenach—the man who believes that success is the greatest of the virtues, and himself the most virtuous of mankind—and Sir John had not only approved but admired.

“ If you had a thousand beds instead of ninety, you would be worth an army corps to your country,” he said.

‘‘Ah, yes, sir, but as we are——?” suggested Charwood.

“ As you are, you are the finest working model of a hospital in the world,” replied Sir John. “ Remember that that’s what you are—a working model—and don’t be foolish enough to try to do more work than you can do easily. I’ll do all that I can for you. If you think it would be any use to you, I’ll do an amputation in your theatre, just to encourage you.”

Mrs. Thorburn said he was far too kind; but Angela thought it would be a shame to impose upon his generosity. He waved her thanks aside and assured her that nothing would give him greater pleasure than to contribute to their success. It seemed to them that, in his enthusiasm, he would do any operation for them—an amputation, if that would encourage them, or even a decapitation, if something more stimulating was thought necessary. A more obliging man could not be imagined.

“ It’s his kindness of heart; though he’s not often so enthusiastic,” Dr. Charwood explained, when he had taken his departure. “ But I could see his eyes glistening as he stood by the operating-table. It was like seeing Stevenson or old Roberts at a newly set up billiard-table.”

There was no formal inspection and no formal opening—no lunch with speeches, no camera tea. The paid staff of trained nurses, with Mrs. Thorbum as Matron— she did not call herself Commandant—and Miss Inman as Store keeper, had tea together one afternoon, and then sat down to wait for patients.

But though making no appeal to anyone in the county, either through the agency of the camera or the circular, the existence of the hospital somehow came to be recognized in the neighbourhood of Chilworth, and gifts began to arrive from many donors, accompanied by promises of supplies. There was a gentleman, a few miles away, who was rich enough to farm his own land; he sent boxes of eggs to the amount of twelve dozen, and promised an equal weekly supply up to the end of the year. Another sent a few vegetables and suggested a weekly cartload. A third offered a travelling can of fresh milk daily, and little Miss Martin, an elderly maiden survival of a period of national gentility, promised a weekly currant cake.

It was made pretty clear to Angela and her staff that their neighbours at least had confidence in them. The Haughton Home people, in spite of collecting by camera and circular, had been compelled to buy even the cakes for the afternoon teas of the amateur staff, to say nothing of the less frivolous oh jets de cuisine for the breakfasts, lunches, dinners and suppers consumed on the premises.

It was not, however, until a full week had passed that the telephone sounded, and they were told to prepare to receive nine wounded men coming by an ambulance train from some port not specified.

The news came as a welcome relief from the inaction of the week. It was very trying to the nerves of everyone to see the rows of empty beds day by day, and the beautiful operating-table with the light shining down upon its spotless surface. “ Such a waste! ” one of the sisters considered it.

But although the relaxing of the strain due to the week’s waiting seemed to be felt by everyone, yet there was no indecorous jubilation when the news spread.The sisters were like Wise Virgins, those earliest Ladies with the Lamps: they were ready for whatever might be brought to them.

And within fifteen hours of being in the fighting line, the nine men brought in the ambulance wagons were being attended to in the hospital. Two surgeons were awaiting them—Dr. Charwood was not one of them; his work on that particular day was carried on in an office in London where, with Sir John himself, he was engaged in drawing red squares on a large scale map of East Nethershire and assigning to every square its allowance of wounded and its ambulance trains. This work is called organization, and its operations may be described as a perpetual effort to put the contents of a quart bottle into a pint tumbler—sometimes, into a half-pint tumbler. That has been the daily problem of the Red Cross Society, and it has to be solved under the eyes of critics who are ready to raise a great outcry if a single drop from the bottle is spilt or if the tumbler is seen to be inconveniently crowded.

The honoured guests who arrived at Angela’s Hospital were not seriously wounded. They were described in the official list as “ not serious.” But the wounds which in war time are described as “ not serious ” are such as, if associated with a person of some importance in a town—say, a leading shopkeeper—would be referred to in bold type in the local newspapers as the result of a “ terrible accident,” or a deplorable mishap.” One young fellow, who lay with closed eyes and set teeth, uttering no moan or complaint, had two of his fingers carried away by a piece of shell; but the missile had performed the operation so clumsily that the surgeons had to make a clean job of it for him. He was on the operating table, and back in his bed again, before Angela had left her office to make inquiries about his condition, and the surgeon was washing his hands and the attendant sterilizing the knives preparatory to another job.

“ Next gentleman! ” the surgeon cried cheerily, when drying his hands, and the young lady with the knives smiled.

Angela stood at the entrance to the room. Her heart was beating fast and her breath came in little gasps.

She had to move aside at once, for another man was being brought in—a man with a head bandaged so fully as to leave only his eyes and his nose visible. But somehow she felt stronger through overhearing the casual words of the doctor and seeing the subdued smile on the face of the nurse.

And she felt better still when she heard the surgeon whistling in a sibilant way through his closed teeth one of the most foolish songs from one of the most foolish musical comedies. She did not quite understand how she should from such trivialities gain a sense of efficiency. But she certainly had such an impression as she went away.

When she got back to her office she sat for a long time before she had completely recovered from the effect of those few glimpses she had of the real work to which she had set her hand. And then she bent her head down to her desk and thanked God that it had been granted to her to earn the blessing of him that was ready to perish.

And through her thanksgiving there was the constant thought of him who had shown himself ready to perish so that he might save those men who were strangers to him. He had not been able in his lifetime, she thought, to do all that he sought to do for his country in her hour of need; but what would his thought be if he could know the work that his memory had inspired?

For herself, she felt such satisfaction as a soldier has on coming successfully through a good fight. Within those walls were nine men who might be able to owe the happiness of life to her help. Every reflection apart from this seemed trivial. She felt herself to be a mother. They were her children—her children and his born out of the love which was theirs. Apart from that reflection, all the world was as trivial as it is to the mother of sons apart from those sons.

And while the tears of thankfulness were still in her eyes, her telephone-bell began its insistent ringing.

Her mother was speaking to her,

“ I expected you home for lunch. What on earth can have detained you? I have had a wretched day and I have a presentiment that I shall have a dreadful night. What?—have I had one of my headaches? Oh, worse than any headache—forced to lie down on the sofa—agony if I so much as moved a finger, and the new boy in the garden got on my nerves with his whistling. I sent out a message to him twice. And then Cook and Gladys met just under my window and began chatting about Tipperary, and there was no one that I could send out to stop them. Gladys is certainly the worst parlourmaid that we have yet tried. And why are they all singing something about that Tipperary? It has been a dreadful day for me since the morning— and you away from me when I needed you so much to do so many things for me. Can you return at once? ”

“ Oh, I’ll return immediately,” cried Angela; but the next instant she recollected Dr. Charwood’s injunction. Here was her chance for acting upon it. “No, no; not quite immediately, Mother,” she added into the mouthpiece. “ No; I’m sorry to disappoint you, dearest, but we have just received our first men. Poor fellows! I dare not leave them—something may be needed. I fear that I must remain here all night, Mother.”

“ All night! All night! But what am I to do? ” asked the voice from the receiver. “Tell me what I am to do? You know I’m too weak to do anything for myself! Oh, Angela, I thought I could always depend on you. I have counted on your sympathy always—you alone knew the extent of my sufferings, and now you are leaving me—deserting me just when I need you most. Oh, Angela! ”

Angela’s compassion was awakened in a moment. She was about to reassure her mother by announcing her readiness to return to her home without delay. It took her some time hardening her heart sufficiently to say:

“ Dearest Mother, I feel that I can be of more use here, so I really must stay. Pray don’t think me unkind or unsympathetic; but I have set my hand to this work and I do not mean to look back. Don’t let Tipperary get upon your nerves: it is only a song that the soldiers have got hold of; there’s really nothing in it—in fact one gets to like it after a while. Don’t be too cross with poor Gladys. She has two brothers and, I daresay, several sweethearts fighting for us in France. Now, pluck up courage, dear, and don’t look for a bad night, or it will be sure to come to you. Think how bad a night some of my poor wounded people here are bound to have. We must do our best for them. Nothing on earth will induce me to leave them, so good-bye for the present. I may be able to return to you for an hour to-morrow; but really I can’t promise. Good-bye. I must cut you off abruptly, dearest Mother; one of the nurses is waiting to send an important message to headquarters.”

She had not to invent the approach of the nurse; happily one had knocked at the door of Angela’s room to make an inquiry through the telephone respecting the number of a stalwart sergeant who had not regained consciousness, and Angela promptly rung her mother off.

She felt that she had behaved quite brutally. But what about that dexterous young surgeon who had been washing his hands—in running water—after using the knives and saws on the finger-stumps of the unfortunate, nay, the fortunate, soldier? Had he behaved brutally? If so, brutality must only be another name for kindness. He had saved the sufferer an infinity of pain. And then Angela felt that she, too, had been performing a surgical operation, and she hoped that her mother would be the better for it in the end. But she wished that she had had some training in the aseptic treatment of a mother whose malady the doctor had assured her was fancying herself a perpetual sufferer.

She had an uneasy conscience for some hours. But she reflected that if she had given way to her mother’s importunity her conscience would have been much more uneasy.

Happily, she had so much to do before night that she had no time to discuss with herself at any length a question as to the conscientious path of least resistance that she. should take. Although Mrs. Thorbum had described her as a non-combatant of the hospital staff, she had still plenty to do during this evening. An addition of nine to the members of her household was worthy of the immediate, consideration of a housekeeper, especially if every one of the nine has a fastidious appetite, and Angela was the housekeeper, and her matron had a good deal to say on the subject of effecting compromises with the tastes developed by her guests. The daily supplies had to be materially increased and Mrs. Thorburn alone could tell in what direction and to what extent the increase was to be made.

Long after it was dark Angela remained at her desk writing orders to the contractors, some to go by post and some by telephone in the morning, and she was quickly made aware of the fact that the doctor’s original estimate of the expense of the undertaking was not likely to prove excessive.

The next day there came a subdued remonstrance from her mother. Mrs. Inman could only say that she was grievously disappointed in her. She expected that Angela would at least have rung her up in the morning to learn what sort of a night she had. She wondered if Angela cared at all whether she had a bad night or a good one, and so forth. To which Angela replied:

“ Oh, by the way, Mother, what sort of a night did you have? ”

But even this show of unconcern did not prevent her mother from giving the details of the imaginary sleepless night of a soi-disant invalid. Everyone has had more or less experience of the wealth of detail capable of being crowded into such accounts, and Mrs. Inman’s retrospection of every hour since sunset was not behind the most vivid example of her skill in this direction with which she had made her daughter familiar.

It was a relief to Angela when her mother came to the account of her awaking from a troubled sleep of a few minutes, snatched from the hungry maw of that night of insomnia by the lilting of that thing about Tipperary by the boy in the garden. Tipperary was the poor lady’s trouble. It seemed to come to her ears from all quarters, and she implored Angela to return to her home to try to put a stop to it.

And then Angela expressed the hope that she had had a good breakfast, and gathered that she had done her best to avoid hurting the susceptibilities of the cook by sending everything untouched back to the kitchen.

Once more Angela had to apologize for ringing her off. The Matron wanted the telephone to reply to an inquiry made earlier by Dr. Charwood.

“ Good-bye for the present, dear Mother,” she said, and promptly rang the bell.

And this time her qualms of conscience were quite insignificant. But she hoped that her treatment of her mother would not be accounted to her for unrighteousness. Anyway, she could use the doctor’s prescription as a plaster to lay on the lips of her conscience, should it begin to whisper the word “ unfilial ” in her ear.

Angela paid her first visit to the sick ward in the afternoon of this day, with Mrs. Thorburn by her side. She had, during the month, gone through several hospitals, so that she had become accustomed to the sight of the faces of wounded men and to the sight of bandages that suggested to her sympathetic imagination the most terrible injuries—the bandages suggested more sufferings than a glimpse at the actual wounds would have done. But only at first did she have any sense of horror, and by the time she was able to visit her own ward she had advanced some way toward acquiring the attitude of the true nurse who is not moved by the appearance of unlimited horrors, and whose sympathy is not of a sentimental character, but most active in realization of the fact that she is doing something to lessen the suffering under her eyes. Angela did not now shrink from anything that a few months ago she would have thought repulsive; she was not moved to the tears of a novice at the sight of mutilation or disfigurement; all that was in her heart was gladness at the reflection that she was able to do something to relieve the gloom of the darkest cloud that has ever overshadowed the land.

Mrs. Thorburn had no reports of an unfavourable character to make. There had been no surgically serious case sent to the hospital for treatment; it was only to the “ case ” himself that the serious aspect was suggested. This was Angela’s supposition when she heard the nurses making their cheerful remarks about “ nothing at all serious.” But she quickly came to learn that the most callous people in the hospital on the subject of the patients were the patients themselves. There did not seem to be among them a man who took his wounds seriously. Even the young gunner who had his fingers carried away, was joking light-heartedly about his loss. It required Mrs. Thorburn’s explanation to Angela to convince her of the truth, which was that the men were so pleased, after what they had seen of the fighting—so pleased and so amazed to be alive at all, that they had no thought for anything except their good luck.

It so happened that a surgical operation of a minor but a messy character had to take place by the direction of Dr. Charwood one day; and this was the day chosen by Mrs. Morrison and her daughter Marjorie for a visit to Angela, to let her know that there was no reason why the performance might not take place at once in the theatre.

“ Poor Marjorie has really got tired of waiting to hear from you,” said Mrs. Morrison. “ You cannot expect her to let the best part of the season go by without giving her her chance. We have decided to have a triple bill—something with soldiers in it—officers, of course. She has already done two such pieces in the schoolhouse, and we are anxious to have the bills printed without delay. Too much time has been wasted already. I told Marjorie about your little theatre, and she will do her best for you, though the place is small enough. We will just have a look at it, if you don’t mind.”

“ I’m afraid—” Angela began; but suddenly she seemed to change her mind. “ Pardon me, I’ve forgotten something,” she added. She wrote a few lines on a memorandum form at her desk, and called in the attendant who was at the door.

“ Just give this to the Matron, and ask her to reply orally ‘ Yes ’ or ’ No,’ ” she said; and then turned with an apology to her visitors.

“ I’m not quite certain if you have ever seen the theatre of a hospital,” she said.

“ I’ve never seen one, but I’d just love to,” replied the girl. *’ I think it fairly rippin’ to have a theatre in a hospital. The poor fellows need such a lot of cheering up.’’

“I’m not quite sure that the performance is always of a very cheering-up character,” said Angela.

“ That’s because so many people choose unsuitable pieces,” cried Mrs. Morrison. “

We will show them how it is possible to be cheerful without being at all vulgar.”

The attendant returned, saying:

“ The Matron’s reply is ‘ Yes,’ madam; ‘ but immediately if you can.’”

“ We shall go to the theatre at once, and you may judge of its suitability for such a representation as yours when you see something of the performance there is going on there at the present moment,” said Angela.

“ But you promised that you would not do anything in that way without first communicating with me,” said Mrs. Morrison, with some indignation in her voice.

“ Not Muriel Hilbroke, surely? ” cried Marjorie, with a glow on her cheek.

“ Oh, no; not Muriel Hilbroke,” said Angela. “ Follow me, please, and you will see the sort of performances we have arranged for in our theatre. Only you must be sure not to utter a sound: our actors are very touchy in such matters.”

“ We’ll not be so inconsiderate,” said Marjorie. “ There’s nothing I hate so much as being interrupted even by the prompter, when once I have started— prompters are sometimes very annoying.”

They had reached the door of the operating-room. Angela whispering, “ H’sh! ” opened the door and peeped in. The sound of voices was heard. “ Take away the gas-bag, and let me have number three knife.”

Then she pushed the door wide.

“ There’s our matinee,” she whispered, drawing her visitors through the entrance so that they had a full view of the operating-table. The surgeon was holding a little knife in his hand above the half-naked body of a man stretched out with a ghastly blue face, from which the gas-bag had just been removed. Mrs. Thorburn whispered a word to the surgeon, and he smiled, and cut boldly in the man’s shoulder.

The cry that came from Mrs. Morrison and the shriek from her daughter were deadened by the closing of the door through which Angela had pushed them the moment that the first spurt of blood came.

One was leaning against the doorpost at one side and the other upon the other, and each had her hand over her eyes.

“ I’m sorry,” said Angela, “ but really, you know, you so insisted on learning all about the operating theatre, I thought it would be a shame to deny you one glimpse at a performance going on there.”

“ Oh, heavens! merciful heavens! I never got such a shock in my life! How do you feel, Marjorie, dear? ” said Mrs. Morrison in a fearful whisper.

” Horrible! horrible! Let us go home! ” cried the girl.

“ How could you do it, Angela? How could you do it? You might have killed us! ” said her mother.

“ You would not be denied, Mrs. Morrison,” said Angela. “You seem to fancy that a hospital exists only to be the means of drawing the eyes of everyone to uniforms and theatrical performances and concerts, and the like. A good many people seem to have the same idea. The patients are made an excuse for the parade of silly persons pretending to help us, but thinking only of themselves and how best they can push themselves forward. I hope that you have now learned what we are and what hundreds of other hospitals are. I don’t mean to be rude; I only mean to be—well, enlightening. I assure you we feel our responsibility.”

“ Good-morning, Miss Inman,” said Mrs. Morrison freezingly. “ I have received a great shock—and Marjorie, my poor child! That spectacle!—Ah, my brave child! What force of will! She refuses to sink under a blow that would cause an ordinary girl to faint —a woman, even! Ah, there is more heroism in an ordinary, every-day life than one suspects, and she is a heroine if ever there was one! Miss Inman, your callousness shocks me—it does indeed. I will say no more. I will leave you to your own reflections. Good-bye.”

“ Good-bye, Mrs. Morrison; good-bye, Marjorie. Perhaps I was to blame,” said Angela. “ But really, when one’s hands are full of important matters—when —but I don’t think you would understand if I were to try to explain to you how trivial the things that I once was almost interested in appear to me just now. Concerts, theatricals—unreal things—foolish things! Oh, good-bye. Half my precious morning has been wasted.”

She turned and almost ran away from them, back to her room and her desk.

When she got to her chair she dropped into it.

“ How did I do it? How did I do it? ” she cried.

She had never been rude to anyone in her life— except, perhaps, to Uncle Edwin, and she had to trust to his word for accounting her treatment of him as exceptional. But she knew that she had frequently been firm, and that the dividing line between feminine firmness and actual rudeness is narrow. Still, she could not remember having ever been aggressively rude and rejoicing in the fact, until this day. She felt that she had offended a neighbour, and she was glad that she had done so. In her eyes, Mrs. Morrison, coming with her talk about her trivialities, in a place made sacred by the sufferings of man, was as intolerable as is a brawler in a church in the eyes of a parson. A parson accounts it for righteousness in the churchwarden who conducts the brawler to the porch, and one may be sure that the churchwarden has no qualms respecting his act whether it was rude or otherwise. Angela felt very nearly as callous over her behaviour to Mrs. Morrison and her daughter as the churchwarden is over his summary treatment of a trifler in a holy place.

And she confessed as much to the Matron when that lady came to her to ask what she had meant by sending her that note asking for permission to look in at the operating theatre for a few minutes when the patient should be on the table.

Mrs. Thorburn laughed at Angela’s explanation.

“ You have got rid of the greatest enemy that the Red Cross can have,” she said. “ Those triflers with the sacred symbols of our work should be dealt with firmly.”

“ I have now and again been accused of firmness,” said Angela. “ I daresay you have heard as much from time to time.”

Mrs. Thorburn had. She had just been to the kitchen to see how the calves’-foot jelly was “ setting ” for the patients’ lunch.

“ As firm as you please; couldn’t be better,” was the report of the cook.

“ As firm as you please; couldn’t be better,” was Mrs. Thorburn’s report upon Angela’s behaviour in regard to her visitors.

There were many strengthening qualities besides her firmness about Angela.

CHAPTER XXIII

BUT from what source was strength to be looked for to support the stricken ones during the terrible months that followed? In almost every town and village in Great Britain it seemed as if the awful Tenth Plague of Egypt had just passed; and that there was not a house in which there was not one dead.

From more than one house in the neighbourhood of Churlington and Chilworth there came the cry of the heartbroken:

“ ‘ Oh, my son, Absalom, my son, my son, Absalom! Would God I had died for thee! Oh, Absalom, my son, my son! ’ ”

One of the first to be killed was young Harold Parkes, the only son of his parents—the son on whom all their hopes had been centred. Harold Parkes, the friend of everyone, the darling of his sisters; a straight rider to hounds, a straight bat. He had been in the Yeomanry for some years and, on his application, had been transferred to a cavalry regiment at the front and was killed in the first charge. He had parted from his mother on a Saturday and he was dead on the next Tuesday.

And then came the tidings of Gerry Travers, the son of Lord and Lady Westerton, not twenty years old. Tall, slim, handsome boy with a smile for everybody he had known since his childhood; forgetting no one, loved by everyone. Frank, boyish, natural as God had made him, and returning to God without fear, without reproach. A very Perceval, pure at heart; the sweetest soul that ever looked through human eyes.

He also was killed in his first action.

And only the year before his father and mother had sat at the same table as the murderous madman of Europe, who in his Judas badinage, had said:

“ When I go across to conquer England, I promise you faithfully that not a stone of your castle will be disturbed,’’ and they had laughed at his geniality, not dreaming that the abasement of England was what was in his heart day and night.

He had sworn to respect their home, and this was how he had kept his word—killing the hope of their house.

And what of the others—the only sons lying dead in their attempt to hold back the murderous hordes? Every paper that one took up contained in that heartbreaking list the description “ only son.”

War has its heroines as well as its heroes, and the truest of these were the wives and the mothers and the sisters. They did not fill the air with the clamour of their grief. The hearts that broke made no sound in the breaking. Their only cry was, “ What can we do more? ” England in her grief is England at her greatest.

• • • • • • •

The wounded began to arrive in thousands, and every hospital in the country was receiving its share. Before the last of the early batch of nine had been discharged from Lullington as cured the vacant beds in all the wards were occupied, and there were several cases described as “serious ” amongst the third and fourth batches. Dr. Charwood had been a little uncertain about the working of his model hospital at first; so he had only sent the nine patients to allow of his satisfying himself on all points, and he had not visited the place more than once a week, so that the staff might become self-reliant. But it soon became plain to him that the staff needed no looking after, and he had no difficulty in filling all the beds, and operations were at first of daily, and even hourly, occurrence. Some of the cases were of a sort of which he had had a large experience in South Africa, and he made such arrangements at his headquarters as would allow of his treating these cases himself. For several days he remained at the hospital directing some of the operations, and performing others in cases of which the other surgeons had not his experience.

It did not take him long to make his personality felt; and the confidence of the staff in the success of their work was immeasurably increased by his presence. The younger house-surgeons spoke with bated breath of some of his daring work in the operating theatre, pretty much as members of the theatrical profession speak of their own successes to their confreres, but always in strict confidence, of course, lest any information in this connection should find its way into the papers. The younger men were disposed to think of Dr. Charwood as a “ star.”

Angela heard through Mrs. Thorburn of the many successful performances of Dr. Charwood; but the greatest that came under her notice was the case of Mrs. Inman. Angela had practically made the hospital her home, deserting her mother for a week at a time, and refraining from giving her former attention and sympathy to her accounts of her sufferings. Gradually these accounts became less diffuse; Mrs. Inman was not so insistent in the details respecting the failure of the cook to grasp the essentials in the toasting of bread, or in the achievement of smoothness in the bread sauce with her daily chicken. What was the good of going over the details of the misery brought about by the cook’s failures if her daughter would offer her no sympathy beyond that of the most conventional sort? she would ask.

But after being subjected to this inconsiderate treatment for a whole fortnight, during which period she only saw her daughter once, she ceased telephoning altogether about herself, and even went so far in the other direction as to make some inquiry about Angela’s work. She hoped that Angela was not doing too much, and so forth. Up to that moment, Angela had never known her mother to show any interest in any one’s work that had not a direct bearing upon herself.

And then came, in the course of a few days, an account from the same source of a walk in the garden. Mrs. Inman actually confessed to having taken a walk in the garden, although the month was November! She had been reading some books on gardening and had come to the conclusion, she said, that much more could be made out of their two acres surrounding the house. She had an idea of a lily-pool, and found, on examination, that it would not be impossible to divert the little stream that ran just beyond the kitchen garden, so that it should fill a concrete basin, etc., etc.

Angela was amazed to find her mother on the borders of enthusiasm in her remarks on the subject of the lily-pond. She had actually walked into the village to talk to Hammond, the jobbing builder, about concrete and puddling, and she assured Angela, over the telephone, that she would never consent to have the pool puddled; concrete was the only sure foundation, though people talked a great deal about the puddled dew ponds of the Downs.

Angela replied that, personally, she had every confidence in concrete; though in the abstract , puddling might be well enough, yet in the concrete, etc,, etc.

But the next day she was talking with one of the patients who was in the convalescent room, and he told her that he had been in the employment of a builder in the country. Questioned by her further, he admitted having been concerned in the construction of more than one garden pond, round as well as square, and puddled as well as concreted, and that he had very definite ideas as to how such a job should be done. He was able to give Angela the names of some places where he had been making these ornamental pools, and she remembered having seen a photograph of one of them in Country Life. She at once telephoned to her mother, promising to send the man to her on his discharge the following week, and her mother said that he was the man whom she hoped to find, for it was clear that Hammond, though an excellent man for village work, had had no experience of pond-making; and she hoped Angela would not forget her promise.

The next morning, however, Angela was rung up by her mother, who wished to say that she thought it would be better if she herself saw the man at once, and so she meant to motor to the hospital after lunch, if he would be allowed to confer with her on her arrival.

Angela replied that she would be delighted to see her and would take care that the man was available for the conference. She met Dr. Charwood in one of the corridors, and laughing, made him acquainted with the result of her acting upon his prescription in regard to her mother.

“ I had no doubt as to the result,” said he. “ But mind you maintain your attitude of inflexible neglect of her. Don’t allow her to talk about herself or her health. Keep her up to the neck in her pond. A garden has been the saving of many women, as golf has been of many men.”

Mrs. Inman came to the hospital that same afternoon. Angela had seen her the previous week for an hour or two, and had not failed to notice how well she was looking; but Mrs. Thorburn, who had not seen her for several months, was in a position to observe how marvellously changed she was within that longer space of time. There was not much of the chronic invalid about her now; she had lost all that languorous way of moving which one associates with an invalid; at some moments now she might even be referred to as brisk. She had a good colour, her eyes were bright, and, most noticeable of all, there was in her voice no trace of that constantly recurring sigh which makes so strong an appeal to the sympathies of the tenderhearted. Even Dr. Charwood himself was surprised at the change in the lady’s bearing, though he carefully refrained from congratulating her upon it: he had advised Mrs. Thorburn to be equally cautious: he had known many recoveries from imaginary ailments thrown back by well-meant congratulation.

And now that she was in the midst of her daughter’s work, Mrs. Inman showed herself quite appreciative of it all; but she did not forget for a moment what was the object of her visit. Where was the man— what was his name—Burstal]?•—who knew all about lily-ponds?

Angela brought her into the Convalescent Ward. On the wall at the further end there was hanging the portrait of Mark Rowland. Mrs. Inman had not seen it before, and now, suddenly brought before it, she was greatly struck by it. For some time she stood with her eyes fixed upon it. Dr. Charwood, who was just behind her, smiled in a confidential way at Angela; and when, after a long, silent pause, her mother went on into the room, he said:

“ The best proof of her recovery; she is prepared to take a normal interest in everything. Two months ago she was too obsessed by her own sad condition, she would not have given the portrait more than a moment’s passing attention.”

Angela made a sign of agreement with him, and brought her mother to the man with whom she meant to confer. He was sitting in his blue overall playing draughts with a comrade who had been wounded by the same shell that had taken a piece off his own shoulder. It was with quite an air of briskness that Mrs. Inman said:

“ I will wait until you have finished your game; ” but the man, who was plainly getting the worst of the duel, showed himself too polite to keep her waiting, and Angela and the doctor left him explaining to his visitor the need to take into account the natural character of the ground where the pond was to be sunk, before deciding how thick the basis of concrete should be, and how thick the cement finishing.

Angela was spoken to by a nurse, and went off to answer an inquiry on the telephone, and the doctor remained to give some instruction to the same nurse respecting a change of diet in regard to one of the convalescents.

Having done so, he was about to leave the ward, when a man who had had a knee-cap shot away, but had been so successfully treated that he had been able to leave his bed for the first time, hobbled through the door, supported on one side by a nurse. He had taken about a dozen steps into the room, making a jesting remark to the nurse, when he came to a sudden halt, and stood there staring straight before him, with an expression of intense amazement on his face—the expression of a man who is dumfounded.

The nurse thought that something had gone astray with the splints on his knee, and felt that it was an inopportune moment for such an accident, for the doctor was watching them. She said an encouraging word to the man; but he paid no attention to her; he stood staring down the room, apparently unconscious of her anxious remark or of the doctor’s approach.

“ What’s the matter with the picture, Nicholson? ” asked the doctor, following the direction of the man’s gaze.

But apparently the man was too dazed to be able to reply. A couple of minutes had passed before he said in a loud whisper:

“ King of Jerusalem! the ghost of Gentleman Geordie Paul! Dressed like a high-grade toff, by the holy poker! And why for not, when he was a toff of high degree and no herror? ”

Then he suddenly seemed to recover himself; he looked around him, and then at the nurse.

“ Sit down carefully,” said she. “ You mustn’t try to bend your knee.”

“ Say, Sister, you’ve eyes in the front o’ your ’ead, haven’t you? ” said the soldier. “ And you wouldn’t try to take in a pore wounded cove that never ’armed yer. I know it; so I’ll be grateful if you’ll jus’ say quiet and no ’arm done if there was somethink headier nor or’nary in the glass you measured out for me jus’ now—somethink to rise and make my pore ’ead swim round for a bit and then see queer? ”

“ Don’t talk nonsense, Nicholson,” said the nurse. “ What’s the matter with you, anyway? You were never like this before.”

“ And for why? Stands to reason, when I never see nothink but what’s there, ’cept, mayhap, once awhile after a League match on Saturday that’s gone the right way, and mayhap a bottle over for Sunday, and no work on Monday—there’s reason in feelin’ a bit all-overish, with a shaky fist, though never so far in life as to see snakes or try to drive a black cat out o’ the room; but now—Sister, I axes you civil and respekful. Do I see the ghost o’ Geordie Paul ’crost there, lookin’ down with the smile he give when some of us called ’im ’ sir,’ quite natchurl, as if it was ’is jew—’ sir,’ and ’im in the ranks no ’igher nor the lowest of us—tell me truly as y’opes for ’eaven, do you see what I see there —Geordie Paul? ”

The nurse felt ashamed of her charge and his nonsense, if not chaffing impudence, with the doctor by, and listening to every word.

“ Dear, dear; I thought you had some sense, Nicholson, and after all that we’ve done for you, too,” she said in quietly reproving tones.

“ Leave him to me, Sister,” said Dr. Charwood, coming to her relief. “ Tell Forster over there not to keep on rubbing his elbow; he’ll have the bandage off in a minute.”

The nurse hastened gladly across the room, and the doctor put Nicholson into a low chair and pretended to do something to the special splint on his wounded knee.

“ That’s better,” he said. “ Now what is it that you’re trying to say about the picture down there? It’s the likeness of the man to whom this place owes its existence as a hospital. His name was Mark Rowland. He was killed after saving the lives of four people from a wreck. What do you know of him? ”

“ Well, I’m—! ” exclaimed the man after a long pause, during which his eyes never strayed from the picture. “ Anyhow, I’m jolly well pleased that it isn’t no blooming ghost. Seein’ ghosts is next street to seein’ snakes, and it’s not for me to try on learnin’ you, Doctor, seein’ as ’ow it’s like enough that you’ve prescrobe for many a cove as was afflicted with the D.Ts. But if you hadn’t gone for to tell me ’oo the gent was, I’d ha’ gone away feelin’ it a dead cert, as ’ow that were Geordie Paul that was ’longside me in that larst scrap with the Germs, and give his ’and to another cove to carry me out o’ the line on to a gun-carriage—Gentleman Geordie, we called ’im, but only between ourselves, for it were plain he didn’t belong to the likes of us; but Lord Jehu! if we called ’em all Gentleman This or Gentleman That we’d have a busy time of it, we would; for there was a crowd of the right sort o’ toffs in the ranks—and not toffs down on their luck neither.”

“ Of course there were; nobody thought the worse of them for being gentlemen,” said the Doctor. “ And so Gentleman Geordie was something like the man in that picture? ”

“ Like? Like? Why, the dead spit of ’im. Least-ways, that’s what Geordie would ha’ looked like if he’d been dressed like that. By the Lord Jehu, it’s ’im— it’s ’im! ’E couldn’t ha’ come back, though, to be killed, could ’e?

“ Men don’t come back to be killed; they go out to be killed. What’s this regiment you belong to? ”

“ Ninth Sabrers, sir; Troop B. My Gawd! did you say I’d never ride again all on account of that blooming knee-cap? ”

“ I think it more than likely. Was Geordie Paul in the same troop? ”

“ In course he wore; ’e’s a sergeant by now. And what am I to do if so be that I don’t ride again? Will they try to turn me into a blarsted mud-crusher? ”

“ They’ll have to turn you out of one thing before they turn you into another. You give all your attention to that knee of yours and you’ll get turned out of this place cured. You’ll know then what’s in store for you.”

An orderly entered at this moment with an official message of some importance for Dr. Charwood, and the sister resumed her charge of Trooper Nicholson, while the doctor went to his room.

He met Angela hastening to her mother.

” The most interesting cure that stands to the credit of the hospital,” said he. ” But mind, you mustn’t allow a relapse.”

“ I think I may be depended on,” said she. “ I’m getting as hard-hearted as you are hard-headed.”

Her mother affirmed that she had been talking to the most intelligent workman she had ever known. After all, the making of a lily-pond was not the terrible job that people thought. Concrete and plenty of it— that was the recipe for a lily-pond.

CHAPTER XXIV

FOR a day or two Charwood was, to a certain extent, impressed by the incident of tAQhe trooper and the picture. But then it assumed its reasonable proportions in his mind. Trooper Nicholson, though a Londoner and having all the advantages that accrue to Londoners of becoming acquainted with the grand masterpieces of portraiture in the various galleries, which on Sundays are turned into convenient salivaria by such visitors as Trooper Nicholson, had probably never been interested in a hand-painted portrait in all his life, and he had doubtless assigned a confusing value to some of the elements in Mr. Brook-man’s picture of Mark. The attitude of Mark would probably suggest the habitual bearing of Trooper George Paul, if Trooper George Paul was in approximately the same position in life as Mark had been in; and probably there were other points of resemblance that would appeal to the casual judgment of the man. There was some distinction in the portrait; being the work of Hugh Brookman, critics would say, it would not be found lacking in this quality; but this was an attribute of the painter rather than of the people he painted, and there was nothing remarkably distinctive about Mark Rowland. He was a good-looking, well-built man, and as such he would not have been noticeable among a crowd of young Englishmen who have been about the world and played cricket in the summer and ridden to hounds in the winter. In addition, to account for Trooper Nicholson’s mistake, Dr. Charwood remembered that the afternoon light in the Convalescent Ward was not particularly good, especially upon the end of the room where the portrait hung; so that he felt glad that Angela had not been present when the man had made the announcement of his recognition of a comrade. She might have been disposed on such evidence to ask if it might not be that—that——

Well, everyone knows how the vaguest and least trustworthy evidence is regarded as being valid as proofs of holy writ in cases of mysterious re-appearances from ships reported lost at sea with all hands, and the like. Charwood himself had had experience of the awful shock to the relatives of some who had been lost at sea, caused by circumstantial reports of their having been seen in distant places of the earth. He had had experience of the eagerness with which an accidental likeness between two men has been accepted as conclusive evidence of the existence of one who had been given up for years as lost, and he felt that it would be a terrible thing if, from anything that Trooper Nicholson had said, Angela should be led to hope that by some miracle Rowland had not perished at the foot of the cliffs on that night of tempest off Plassid Point. He knew that when Mark’s brother should apply to the Court of Probate to administer his estate on the assumption that Mark was dead, the evidence which he, Philip Charwood, could give, would satisfy the Court that Mark had been killed by the fall of the cliff.

The thought of Mark’s brother in this connection led him to ask himself if it might not be possible that an explanation of Nicholson’s mistake would be found in the simple fact of Rupert’s having enlisted in the same regiment. He had once seen Rupert, and he recollected now that there was some resemblance between the brothers, though it certainly was not very marked, and if—

But why should the brother assume a strange name when enlisting? and how should he manage to get out to the front within a few months of the war? If Mark had been in his place he might, considering his service in the Yeomanry, have contrived to get sent out with the Sabrers; but he had never heard of Rupert’s being in any regiment, even of Volunteers.

Oh, why should he try to account for Nicholson’s foolishness on any other basis than that which any reasonable person would accept as adequate—namely, that the man was so casual as to be easily deceived by the most elementary points of resemblance between two men? He thought of Voltaire and the Witch of Endor. “ What is it that you see? ” “A man.” “ Is he an old man? ”“Yes, he is an old man.”

“ Ah, then beyond doubt that is Samuel.”

Still he was glad that poor Angela had not been present when Nicholson had talked in his cocksure Cockney about his comrade “ Gentleman Geordie ”; she might have had a painful few minutes; and he thought it well, when examining his wounded knee the next day, to tell the man to take care not to say anything more about the likeness between his Gentleman Geordie and the gentleman in the picture. But he found that he had no need to say a word to him on the subject. The man was now ready to admit that he had made a mistake, and to apologize to anybody who considered himself or herself aggrieved by the “ libetty ” he had taken in fancying that there was a resemblance where, really, when you looked closely, you could see there was “ nothink of the sort.”

Somehow the man’s voluble withdrawal from his position made Dr. Charwood feel that Trooper Nicholson was more convinced than he had been at first that, whatever people might say, that picture was the portrait of Trooper Paul of the Sabrers.

He took occasion to ask Angela if she knew of Rupert’s having gone into the army. She smiled at his question.

“He is one of those who on patriotic grounds remained at home,” said she. “ Lady Barston told me how he had explained to her that his chief—the Secretary of the Annexation Department—had remonstrated with him when he proposed to enlist, and appealed to him not to desert his post on the permanent staff just when his services were most likely to be needed.” ‘‘So he reluctantly gave up his idea of fighting? I wonder if he was heart-broken.”

“ He explained to his sister that the Minister had promised to compensate him for his disappointment.”

“ On what scale? Estimated by the Minister or by Rupert? ”

“ Lady Barston said that he told her he had saved the country an expenditure of three or four millions by remaining at his post. I think that there’s no doubt that he is an exceedingly clever man; but I’m not so sure that he is so clever as Cecile believes him to be.”

“ Or possibly as Rupert Rowland believes him to be.” “ Why are you interested in him just now ? ”

“I’m not. Only it occurred to me that as poor Mark’s hopes were frustrated, it might be that his brother would have felt impelled to take his place at the front.”

Angela shook her head.

“ He would never have been able to take Mark’s place in any direction,” she said. “ Rupert takes after his father in thinking of himself in the first instance. He is the sort of man that will get on in the world. He has always gone through life with an ice-axe and Alpine boots with nails in them, you know, to help the climber to keep his footing in slippery places.”

“ There’s a good deal to be said in favour of the man who climbs with an ice-axe,” said Charwood thoughtfully. “ He climbs by his own exertions. There are men who try to climb by getting on the shoulders of their friends.”

“ And others who simply get on by holding on to the coat-tails of those ahead of them,” said Angela. “ Yes, I think that the climber with an ice-axe of his own is the one to admire.”

That was the sum of their chat about Rupert, and when they separated Charwood forgot how it had originated, and wherefore. He had given no more thought to the episode in the Convalescent Ward; and for some days his work was so arduous that he had no time for a consideration of incidents so unimportant. The Indian regiments had been in action, and the wounded were coming by every train to Regentsand. The building that had once been a palace of pleasure had never been quite purged of the atmosphere of the orgy, in spite of the disinfecting influence of long years of municipal oratorios and mayoral garden-parties; but it was now to be consecrated by becoming a hospital for the turbaned hosts who had suffered for England’s sake. Hundreds of their Emperor’s soldiers bearing great battle names— sunburned names of Sikhs, Dogras, Gurkhas, Punjabis— were being carried through an English garden into an Oriental palace, the walls and ceilings of which were glittering with the gold and glass and silver, cunningly worked in entrancing designs, that, for the first time, formed an appropriate setting for the figures they surrounded. The creed of the Christian and the creed of the Moslem and the creed of the Hindu are the same in regard to the doctrine that sanctification and redemption come to mankind only through suffering; and if there were degrees of consecration, no one would deny that the palace hospital at Regentsand was thrice blessed—thrice sanctified, by the sufferings of the men who had been wounded in the struggle of civilization with barbarity. In that palace hospital something was being done that was far beyond the healing of the sick; there was being woven a threefold cord that will bind for ever in one cincture all those elements in the three creeds that ennoble humanity—the Faith, the Hope and the Charity which, mingling together, bring forth the sympathy of man for man that alone can build up and sustain an Empire.

To have had something to do with this great work should fill a nation with pride; and Philip Charwood was not slow to appreciate his good fortune in being able to lend himself to such a service. He gave himself up to the work that was before him, and though he was but one of a noble fellowship, he knew that so long as he should live, he would feel that, having been concerned in such a work, he had not lived in vain.

• • • • • • •

At the end of the most strenuous week of his life he was able to relax, in a measure; he had now and again felt that the breaking-strain was being approached so far as his power to work was concerned, and he knew that he must relax for some hours a day, if he hoped to preserve himself. The sea was beside him—a wintry sea quivering under the lash of a constant rain; but every day he had a stroll—a fighting stroll, with the salt spray flying through the air about him— and every day his thoughts went to the woman whom he loved, but from whom he was separated by a barrier, the weight of which seemed growing day by day. It seemed to him that until now he had never fully estimated the insuperable nature of the barrier there was between Florence Thorburn and himself. He had found himself drawn so close to her during the previous two months that he found himself thinking of the place where she was as his home; and now he felt the separation from her as if it were the expatriation of a husband from his wife and their mutual household. He was full of longing for her. The thought of her was refreshing to him—more stimulating than the fresh wind that met him in his walks by the sea. At such times he felt that he could not stay away from her. It was the seeing of her that was a help to him—the sense of her being near to him.

He could not understand how it had been possible for him to hear all that she had told him about herself and about the man whose life was the barrier between them, and yet feel no more than he had felt about this destruction of his dearest hope. He recollected that his feeling after he had heard her story was on the border-line of actual happiness. He now asked himself why it .had not been on the border-line of despair? It was not until he found that his work at his headquarters had been done so systematically as to leave him free for a week and he found himself on his way back to her, that he remembered that the existence of the man whom she had married had not been a barrier between his own love for her and her love for him. It was surely the thought of this that had made him feel satisfied after parting from her that evening in her garden. She had told him that she loved him and none other, and with her words in his ear and the touch of her hand upon his own, how could he feel despair? How could he feel otherwise than satisfied ?

And all the time they had been together since that evening he had been sustained by the surety that whatever might happen, her love for him would suffer no change. Not a word of love—not a glance of love had been exchanged between them. Quite apart from his feeling that either would have been unpardonable under the conditions of their association, he knew that it would be unnecessary. It was part of the life of both of them, this love; it was the breath of their life—it was their daily food. But it was not until he found himself away from her and his work had given him breathing space, that he was led, as it were, to analyse this breath of life, and to wonder why he had not long ago felt it to be impregnated with an element that prevented his being refreshed by it as it should be.

He had only to see her on his entering the hospital to feel a return of his former satisfaction at the relations existing between them. With the sight of her and the sound of her voice he felt that all’s well with the world. He could tell her, not how he had been thinking of her—how the thought of her had been his constant companion during his walks by the sea, but only how glorious a thought had been realized in that palace hospital in the midst of its gardens by the sea, of the dreamlike wonder of seeing the dark faces and the coloured turbans with a mise-en-scène that they believed had been prepared specially for their reception. He told her of the visit paid to the Indian troops by some of the veterans who had once commanded them on their native plains, but had long ago retired to end the days of a once active life in the quiet villas of Regentsand—of the lifting up of bandaged heads to the sound of their own tongue, spoken by a white-haired General Sahib whose name and fame had been passed down to them by their fathers, who had served under him in more than one campaign. He told of the tottering soldier of the King with the rank of Field-Marshal, who had once held the supreme command in India and who had been through the Mutiny. His life had been saved by the timely approach of a regiment manned, possibly, by the grandfathers of some of the men of the same regiment who were lying on the beds before him. Truly a pathetic picture—the eyes of the old man dim with tears, as he stood at the door and looked down the gaudy room, with the writhing griffins on the walls and the lights flashing through the coloured crystals of the great chandeliers, as they did in the palace of many a rajah of a state larger than England itself. What were the thoughts of the old soldier, Angela wondered, her eyes as dim as his own had been. A burden of sixty years of memories!

Truly the most wonderful incident in the history of the Empire was this carrying of the wounded Indians to their home by the English Channel; they had closed their weary eyes in the ambulance train and opened them in the palace of their own Rajah! Magic—magic, Charwood had heard one of the men cry in Pathan. Truly magic such as the world had never known before, either in the East or the West. Truly a privilege to be allowed to play a part however small in such an incident!

CHAPTER XXV

HE had talked to Angela and her matron during the half-hour they spent at tea together on his return from that memorable visit of his to Regent-sand. He could not help noticing how fagged Angela looked. She was to prepare herself for a week at home, he told her; and then he turned to Florence Thorburn. There was on her face an expression such as he had never before seen her wear. It was one of infinite sadness. His interpretation of it was that she had fallen into the same line of thought as himself. Her eyes, that had for months been bright with the same consciousness that had been his, were—what were they like? He observed them, and he said to himelf: “ She has been looking into reality; her eyes are the eyes of a woman who has awakened from a pleasant dream, to look into the face of some cold reality.”

Had she been having such thoughts as had forced themselves upon him after his strenuous days? If so, might he expect her to revert, as he had done, to that state of contentment which made for happiness, even though no more substantial than that which is the result of having been in a pleasing dream?

And Angela also had noticed her expression.

“ Florence is in much greater need of a holiday than I am,” said she, when Charwood had been prescribing a week at home for her. “ She has had far too much to do. Sister Gertrude had to go off duty just when the last batch of men arrived and the matron took her place for three days. She had too much of her own work to do before then, but she would not give anyone a chance of mutilating her system of work by attempting to act as her deputy, and the result is—well, you see her, and I hope you will be stern with her.”

“ If I thought I could induce her not to worry about what is being done in her absence—or rather what is being neglected, I should order her off duty at once,” said he.

She made no reply. Nothing that he said, however it made for cheerfulness, or however great its effect upon Angela, seemed to move Florence in any way. The expression of melancholy upon her face appeared to be fixed. He was certain that she had in his absence fallen into the same trench of thought as that out of which he had just managed to extricate himself; but she had not been so fortunate as he; she was still in the depths.

And then one of the house surgeons came to the room, inquiring for him.

“ I suppose it is about Thompson,” said Angela. “ Mr. Walters was hoping for your early arrival in order to consult with you about Thompson.”

“ And who may Thompson be? ” asked Charwood.

“ We have heard a good deal about poor Thompson during the past few days,” replied Angela. “ He is one of the men who were sent to us direct from the Coast—wounded in two places. Mr. Walters will tell you all about him. Come in, Mr. Walters.”

The young surgeon entered.

“ I’m glad you’ve come, sir,” said he. “ If you hadn’t come, we should have telephoned to you. It’s a case of—”

He mentioned what it was a case of. Angela had been told in language adapted to the lay intelligence that it had something to do with the pressure of a splinter of bone upon the base of the brain; and it was extremely interesting; but the surgeons did not like doing anything heroic with it on their own responsibility—it was ticklish, Surgeon Walters thought.

“ I’ll have a look at him,” said Charwood. “ Is the other wound a nasty one? ”

‘‘ Not serious—a simple fracture,” replied Walters, leaving the room with Charwood. Angela and her matron heard them continuing their conversation as they walked through the passages.

“ Mr. Walters seems greatly relieved now that Dr. Charwood has returned,” remarked Angela; ” and so am I, because I know that you must be. I believe that Thompson’s mishap is something quite new to you, and you were beginning to fear that our luck in patients was about to change. Isn’t that so, now? ”

“ I do believe that it was,” replied Mrs. Thorburn. “ I cannot tell you the relief I felt when Dr. Charwood said he could come to us to-day.”

“ I knew I was right. I’ll tell you what it is, Florence; I have been giving you credit for being more callous then you really are. Until this ticklish case of Thompson came on the tapis, you were very much inclined, I thought, to look at the cases simply as cases; I never saw you really perturbed—disturbed—about any of them until you were induced to look at Thompson with his two wounds. You have not been the same woman since. I’m glad for your sake, as well as Thompson’s, that Dr. Charwood is now on the spot.”

“ I admit that I was a little upset; you see, although I had never come in contact with just such a case, I knew enough about it to be quite aware how serious it is. And then Mr. Walters was inclined to be gloomy In short—but Dr. Charwood is here now—he is looking at the man this very minute.”

She had risen from her chair, and there was a faltering tone of extreme anxiety in her voice.

Angela was more surprised than she had yet been.

“ Why, from your tone you might be Beatrice Cenci, saying to her mother, ’ They are about it now,’ when the murderers had just been admitted to her father. Ah, I remember what you said to me before we began our work, about your being sometimes overwhelmed with the sense of your responsibility. I think I understand something of this now.”

“I’m sure you do—something.”

“ But if you have a sense of your responsibility, I assure you that I am not quite wanting in that particular, my dear Florence, and so——”

“ Could I doubt it, Angela? ”

“ If you could, I’m going to dispel that doubt for ever; and let me tell you that I include you among my greatest responsibilities, and seeing all that I have seen—seeing you as I do now, I am going to prescribe for you. I don’t care what Dr. Charwood may say— I am going to send you away from here for a week. It’s really quite absurd for you to fancy that you can go on for an indefinite period, as you have been doing —fourteen hours on your easy days—sixteen on the others, and the others have been by far the more frequent.”

Florence Thorburn shook her head.

“ Dr. Charwood—you heard what he said?—He was right; I should worry more when away, so that I should get nothing out of my holiday,” she said.

“ I tell you that I don’t mind what he says. I’m determined that you shall be free of us for at least a week, worry or no worry. Is my worrying not to be considered in the least? I assure you that I have never ceased to worry about you since I saw how you took this case of Thompson. Go away you shall. I decline to have your break-up laid to my charge. Now, that’s my last word. People may have told you that I have a reputation for firmness. I think we have talked about this before now. But I never was firm until now.”

“ You are a tyrant,” said Florence. “ Well, I promise you that I will take a week off; but not before we know what is to become of the man—Thompson— I am so—so—interested in this case—it is so new in my experience—I feel that I could not go away while this is hanging over me—my duty—I feel that it is my duty to stay until Dr. Charwood has spoken definitely.”

“ Oh, that’s all right; if you promise me faithfully that you’ll go off then, I’ll be satisfied. Seriously, you know, my dear Florence, if you were to lay yourself up, we should find ourselves in a very bad way. I don’t know what we should have done without you—I don’t know what we should do without you now.”

“ When I take my week off you’ll know.”

“ Only too well, I’m afraid. Why are we waiting here, I wonder? Do you expect the doctor to return immediately to give you the result of his examination of your exceptional case? ”

“ I thought perhaps we might catch him if he meant to go to the laboratory.”

“ The case of Thompson has clearly got on your nerves. Really, I am beginning to think that, after all, you should not have taken up nursing as a profession. You are allowing—”

“ There he is—I thought he would be going to the laboratory.”

Angela and Florence had been standing at the door of the room where they had had tea, when Charwood and Walters appeared, and were about to go through a doorway on their right, when the matron hastened to intercept them.

“ You have seen him? ” she asked quickly.

“ Yes; you did not exaggerate his condition,” replied Charwood. “ I think he may have a chance if my operation is successful to-morrow—only a chance.”

“ You think only a chance? ” she said.

“ Oh, well, you know what his condition is at present. Still, I’ve come across worse. I need not tell you that without an operation to relieve the pressure, he could not live longer than forty-eight hours.”

“ I was sure that an operation would be necessary. Have you ever known one that was successful in such a case? ” she asked.

“ I have known several—that is, of course, if this case is what I believe it to be. Oh, yes, several. I think that the percentage of successes is something like six or seven. Are you interested? Do you mean to come to the operating-room to see the way of it? ”

“ I am interested, of course,” she replied, after a pause; “ greatly interested; but—no, I cannot see you operate—that is, I mean I should be afraid lest my being present would flurry the nurse—she would be over anxious—I might be so as well.”

He looked at her for some moments before saying:

“ I don’t think that you could possibly be more anxious than you are at this moment. The two months you have spent here are telling on you. I cannot have you break down on us.”

“ I’m sure that I shall not break down; but I have promised Angela to take some time off.”

“ Start to-morrow—that’s my advice to you. People are talking at headquarters about us here. Sir John has been reporting—we have not lost a single patient yet.”

“ And do you think that the man—that Thompson will be the first? ”

“ Certainly I hope not. However—oh, you know as much as I do about the chances in such cases. I tried his heart just now; it’s quite good—good enough to give him a reasonable chance, but you know what the heart is—all right to-day, and all over the place to-morrow. Have you been quite well? ”

“ Oh, quite well, only—”

“Ah, you have had a lapse of three years in your nursing. That accounts for your worrying now. Goodnight.”

He went through the door of the laboratory that he held half open, and she walked back to the room in which she had been.

Angela was no longer here. She was alone in the room.

She stood with her hand on the mantelshelf looking into the fire beneath. Then she turned away and walked to the door, but when her hand was on the knob, she stood irresolute for a long time. At last, with a spasmodic movement, she seemed to pull herself back from the door. She flung herself into a chair and leaned her head weakly upon one of its arms. Her attitude was one of complete exhaustion. It would have suggested to anyone watching her, that she had gone through a long and arduous physical trial—a contest that had been overmuch for her strength. There did not appear to remain with her sufficient strength to enable her to raise her head from the padded side of the chair, and her arms were lying in a helpless way, with the palms uppermost, the one on her knee, the other over the frame of the chair. Her eyes were closed.

But after a while she was able to raise her head. Her arms found life in them, and her hands came together. She was able to say a prayer.

“ Oh, God above us,” she said out loud, “You have made me a woman, and Thou knowest and I know what it is to be a woman. Oh, God, I pray that I may remain a woman, in heart, in thought, in patience, in suffering, in renunciation, in resignation, in trustfulness.”

She kept her hands still clasped, and when she had spoken her prayer, she may have repeated it in a whisper more than once as she sat with her eyes looking into the fire.

When she rose from her chair, it was not with a sudden or spasmodic movement, but slowly and without faltering. She had confidence in her power to do what she had set herself to do. She went out of the room and across the passage to the laboratory door. She listened outside for a while, and hearing the sound of clinking glasses, but of no voices, she knew that Philip Charwood was there and alone.

She knocked, and she heard his steps coming to the door to open it for her.

He seemed surprised to find her there, but he did not utter a word of surprise. He looked at her and waited for her to explain why she had come to him now, after parting from him only half an hour before.

“ Dr. Charwood,” she said after a little gasp. “ Dr. Charwood, I feel that I should tell you that the man who has been brought here under the name of Edwin Thompson is my husband, Alfred Thorbum. Now you know everything—Good-night.”

“ Good-night,” he said.

He did not close the door of the room until he had seen her walk up the passage and through the doorway whence she had come.

Then he shut the door, and went on with his examination through his microscope of some microbic slide which a brother surgeon had presented to him at Regentsand the previous day.

It was not until he was going to bed some hours later that he recollected how he had tried to analyse (after the manner of his profession) the look which he had seen in her eyes—“ She has been looking into the face of a cold reality ”—that was the sum of his analysis.

CHAPTER XXVI

OF course she knew that she had done right. How could she ever have thought that she would not do it? What impression would he have acquired if, after the operation, he had learned who the man was and that she, knowing who the man was, had kept the knowledge from him until the operation should be over?

The greatest hero of history had been, in her eyes, the Dutchman who, flying from the officer of the law sent to arrest him, had succeeded in crossing the frozen lake that meant liberty to him; but looking back, saw that his pursuer had gone through the ice and was struggling for his life. Without hesitation he had swum to his assistance and succeeded in bringing him safely ashore, and staying by him, getting him a restorative, had put him on his feet again, yielding himself his prisoner and going with him to be condemned to death, and to suffer death by the axe.

She had read the story when a girl and the Dutchman had ever been her favourite hero.

And now she loved the man who was going to save the life of the one that stood between him and happiness.

She did not doubt it, and she had just told him that she did not doubt it. He would only have been half a hero if he were to operate upon Alfred Thorburn not knowing that his name was Alfred Thorburn, or that he was her husband. He would only have been half a hero if he had not known that he was giving up his life to save the other.

Of course she had done right in telling him the truth. Whatever would be the result of the operation, she knew that she had done what was right in regard to him and in regard to herself. What would he think of her if she had kept silence?

The situation was one that was susceptible of being considered from many standpoints; but she could only look at it from the one: what would Philip Charwood think were she to withhold from him the information which she had in her power to give to him?

She did not sleep easily; but she knew that she would not have slept at all if she had not acted in such a way as would give Philip Charwood a chance of playing as heroic a part as that Dutchman had played long ago; and she felt, in the morning, that he would be a different man from the man of her heart if he were to send her a message that he had sent for another surgeon to do the critical operation. Had any such message come from him—but she knew it would not come; and it did not come.

It did not come.

She heard the two house-surgeons, Walters and Stone, chatting about the operation that was to take place in another hour. One of them took it upon him to explain to her the principle that made such an operation necessary; and she listened with apparent interest to his exposition of certain points in surgery about which she knew a great deal more than he did. He had, however, been looking up the thing in one of his books, and was thus in a position to give her the exact percentage of successes, and she learned that it was lower even than harwood had stated, speaking only from recollection. The young surgeon flattered himself that he could take a purely scientific and impersonal view of all these matters; that he could look with all the cold abstraction of a critical and unemotional observer at the bending of the index finger of the scales between Life and Death. He flattered himself that that was the attitude of Science in regard to Life and Death ; each was nothing more than an incident in the day’s work of a surgeon; and so he was able to smile in a way, pursing out his lips while shaking his head gently, and saying:

“ Oh, no; I don’t expect that the chap will get over it; but that doesn’t matter, you know; it doesn’t take anything away from the interest of the operation. I wouldn’t miss it for anything. Dr. Charwood does anything like that so cleanly. He knows his own mind, and makes a clean cut. But you’ve seen him yourself, Matron; and you’ve seen a heap of others at the same job; you were bound to notice the difference.”

“ I have indeed,” she replied. “ He was said to be one of the best of the surgeons of the ambulances in South Africa. But you don’t think he will manage to pull this man Thompson through ? ”

“ Oh, it’s a toss-up,” said Surgeon Walters, in a tone that suggested his shrinking from a question that might come from an outsider. It is all very well for the passengers in the steamer to crawl to the captain in the course of a gale, with the question, “ Captain, is it going down? ”—but his officers should not come to him with such an inquiry. He wondered greatly that the matron should ask him such a lay question as to whether the patient would be pulled through or not.

” I must hurry round my ward, or I may miss part of the first act,” he cried, drinking the last of his cup of coffee. “

You’ll be there, I expect, Matron? ” he added from the door.

“ Not to-day: I have a lot to do in the office,” she said.

“ Oh, but this case—you may never have another chance of seeing the thing done,” he said, in a tone of remonstrance and surprise. “ It will not take more than half an hour, all told, unless the heart gives out after the anaesthetic. Stone is to be the anaesthetist to-day.”

She shook her head. She had no word to say.

She caught a glimpse of Philip half an hour later. He was going toward the operating-room. There was no faltering in his step. She did not show herself to him. She went into her own room and shut the door and locked it.

She looked at the clock. It would take the operating surgeon fully half an hour washing his hands; but the moment he had washed them he would be in readiness, and she knew that he could not be kept waiting.

And there she was, alone with her thoughts in that silent room, and the clock on the mantelshelf ticking away—ticking a man’s life away.

In the middle of the room she stood trembling. She knew that she was feeling as a prisoner in the dock, who is not utterly callous, might feel while the jury had retired to consider their verdict. . . .

And she caught herself thinking. . . .

Recollections of a past long gone came upon her in a procession of terrible orderliness. She had married him. Once or twice during the month preceding their marriage she had actually believed that she loved him Once or twice during the month following she had the same belief; and on the day after her child was born she had no doubt about it. She had not seen him for more than half a year, and she knew that all that time he had been pursuing an old love of his many loves; but still she had believed for that day that he was in her heart. . . .

And he had never been sufficiently interested in her or their child to put himself to the trouble of coming to see either of them. . . .

She looked up at the clock. Was it his life that it was ticking away? . . .

She could not understand how it was that she had never before noticed how extraordinarily loud a tick that thing had. How was it that it had never worried her when she had come into this room to snatch a few hours’ rest after a strenuous day? . . .

And then, when it suited his purpose, he had tried to come into her life again—that was after the lapse of more than a year—after he had been sent to gaol for making an attempt upon the life of the new man for whom the other woman had left him. But he had not succeeded in carrying out his intentions; and he had persecuted her at intervals during all the next year. Once he got their child into his hands and refused to give her up. What a month of torture that had been to her! In order to get back her child she had actually signed an agreement to acknowledge him once more as her husband; but happily another woman had caught his fancy, and she was freed from his menace until the Court had granted her the separation—that foolishly-named decree that kept her still bound to him. . . .

And she was still bound to him—still bound to him. . .,

Was she still hound to him? . . .

She looked at the clock. The half-hour had passed by five minutes. . . .

Was the clock ticking his life away? or was it ticking her happiness away?

All at once the horrible orderly procession of her recollections became disorderly, as a crowd breaking up after listening to an exciting speech. The memories of days and hours—incidents of life and death—days of struggle—of temptation—frustrated plans of happiness —of despair—and even a burning longing for liberty— even a horror of the shackles that bit into her flesh— these kept dancing before her eyes, making her dizzy with their whirl. She had the feeling that comes to some people who find themselves in the middle of a wild crowd swaying to and fro with excitement, and then swirling like a living maelstrom that no one could swim against.

And then, all at once, the frenzy of her recollections seemed to find a voice, and the cry that sounded in her ears was a Maenad shriek of “ Kill him! kill him! kill him! ”

What was it that was in her mind—in her heart? What was it that she was hoping for?

She stood aghast at the question that seemed whispered in her ear, so that she heard it above the Comus rout singing about her. She was horror-stricken at the glimpse of her face that she had in a narrow mirror that hung between the windows. It was ghastly in its pallor, but there was in it an expression of dreadful eagerness that shocked her. She passed her hand convulsively athwart her face, as if making an attempt to wipe away a dreadful accusation, written in fiery letters before her eyes.

She flung herself on the floor, and lay there with her face hidden in the hollow of one arm, uttering convulsive gasps of prayer:

‘’ Save him, 0 God, save him! Save his life! Let him not die! Save me from feeling myself a murderess! ”

She lay there for a long time, not knowing how long; afraid to look up at the clock, but hearing its inexorable ticking going on and on, until its mocking monotony actually had the effect of tranquillizing her. It seemed to bring her out from a place of stifling dreams into a smoother atmosphere.

More than half an hour had passed since she had looked at the clock.

What had happened within that space of time? Had God been merciful?

What interpretation could anyone who knew what her thoughts had been put upon that question? Had God been merciful to her, or to him?

Not for a moment now did she shrink from that question. She knew that all her’ hope was that the man’s life had been spared.

She had prayed the previous night that God might keep her a woman, true to her womanhood of pity, of patience, of pardon, and God had granted her prayer. She pitied and she had pardoned. She had passed through a seven-times-heated furnace; but her prayer had been heard. She had come forth unscathed—true to her womanhood.

• • • • • • •

But she could not go out of her room at that time to ask the question. All that she could do was to unlock her door and wait until someone should come to her.

Angela was the first to come. And what was Angela’s news?

“ They are going to send us six men to-morrow, if we can discharge as many to-day,” she said. “ What do you think of it? I saw Dr. Charwood a few minutes ago, and he says he believes he can pass six out to-morrow. But we are a nurse short already and we shall insist on your going also. I am not quite sure: the decision rests with you. What do you say? ”

“ Oh, don’t be afraid of numbers,” replied Florence. “ I would not hesitate to accept six. After all, it will be nothing extra.”

“ I feel greatly inclined to accept them all; but I hope there will be no breaking down among our staff. Well, I shall say ‘ Yes ’ to the inquiry—it was really no more than an inquiry that we got,” said Angela; and she hastened away without a word as to whether the doctor had operated, or left it over until the next day.

Mr. Stone came across the passage in something of a hurry.

“ I’m in luck to find you at once,” said he. ” I want the address of the man who made that last probe—the syringe man, you know—is it Portland Street or Welbeck Street? ”

“ I think it is neither—somebody in Stanhope Street, wasn’t it? Oh, yes; Glenister, 280, Stanhope Street. Wait for a moment, until I make sure,” said she, going to her desk.

” So sorry to bother you,” said he; “ but that chap’s tear-duct is stopped again, and needs a bigger probe. Oh, 280? Thanks so much. I’ll ask Miss Inman to ring him up.”

He was off without another word—before she could put a single question to him. And he had been the anesthetist at the operation—if the operation took place. She was beginning to think that it must have been postponed.

She could easily have learned all there was to know —after all, she only wanted to hear one word: success, or failure—by going into the Sick Ward; but she shrank from this; she could not trust herself before so many eyes.

And it was from the lips of Philip Charwood himself that she got the word for which she waited.

He was passing the door of her room. It was half open, and at the sound of a footfall—she did not know that it was his—she stepped into the opening.

He stopped for a few moments, seeing her; but he had actually gone beyond her door before stopping. He had to turn half-way round in order to face her when speaking.

“ The operation was quite successful,” he said.

“ Thank God—thank God! ” she said, in a fervent whisper.

He looked at her curiously for some moments.

“I’m not sure that God had much to do with it,” he said.

And then he walked on.

CHAPTER XXVII

THROUGHOUT the day he was haunted by that thought which had come to him for the first time when he made that response to her exclamation. He had said that he was not sure that God had had much to do with the success of the operation.

He had not allowed himself before that moment to think of the operation from any standpoint except that of science. The man had been nothing more than a “ case ” to him: something a good deal less impersonal than a difficult chess problem is to a good player. He had approached the man with all the skill that he had acquired by study and experience, to do what he might to defeat that opponent of his who was moving stealthily on to victory over the chequered board of the man’s life. It was a case of white to move and checkmate the black enemy in so many moves, and white had done all that he set out to do.

The man’s life was saved, and the man who looked on himself simply as the exponent of the advance of science had won his match. That was how Philip Charwood was disposed to regard his work on the operating-table.

He had said exactly what had come into his mind in response to the woman’s exclamation. It had not occurred to him that God had anything to do with the transaction. There was no irreverence in such a conclusion, assuming that God was the Power Who made miraculous interpositions in certain cases, without which the result of any operation would be different. Of course that Power had decreed that, after the lapse of many thousand years, certain discoveries should be made and certain instruments devised, and, most necessary of all, that certain human hands should acquire an amount of dexterity and the human brain should acquire such accuracy of judgment as made the result of an operation, which a few years ago would have been thought impossible, successful in five cases out of every hundred; so that, undoubtedly, from that standpoint one should sing Jubilate Deo.

But that was not just what was in Florence Thorburn’s mind when she had said her Jubilate. She had not been thinking of the Power that had decreed such a combination of circumstances as made the operation successful, but of a Power Who had willed that Alfred Thorburn was to be snatched from death; and Philip Charwood confessed his uncertainty that thanks were due to this Omnipotent Power; and the more consideration he gave to the matter the more convinced did he become that his first impression in this respect was correct.

If he had considered the healing of Edwin Thompson from the standpoint of whether the happiness of the world would not be materially increased by the failure of the operation on Alfred Thorburn, he would certainly have come to the conclusion that failure was much more desirable than success, and that a benevolent Power would have at least earned the thanks of several people—whether they offered them or not—had He decreed that the fellow should die. He felt that it was lucky he did not allow his own judgment of right and wrong to sway him in any way, otherwise he would have felt a good deal of remorse at the thought that he had brushed death aside from his attack upon Alfred Thorburn. More than once since he had exchanged those few words with Florence Thorburn he had been led by her pious exclamation to ask himself if it might not be that he had been appointed the instrument to punish Alfred Thorburn for his sins, and that he had, through pride in his own ability, failed to carry out the decree of Heaven that Alfred Thorburn should die for the evil that he had done and the unhappiness he had caused to innocent people.

He felt, through looking at the operation from other standpoints than the purely scientific, that he was directly responsible for prolonging a life that meant suffering to far better people. That was not a very pleasant reflection to have, and it would have harassed him more if he had not been more devoted to his profession than to a consideration of the justice of Heaven. His devotion to the principles of his profession was supreme; and it had made it impossible for him to entertain the thought that, by allowing his knife to swerve to the extent of a hair’s breadth, he could place within his reach and the reach of Florence Thorburn the happiness which was their due—the thought that by giving the man the benefit of his skill and experience, he was condemning both himself and her to suffering greater than had been in all their life before. Such a thought had not come into his mind; it may have been hovering about him in some part of the air, for, unhappily, there is no process by which the moral atmosphere of a room can be rendered aseptic; but it had never come into his mind; the fact being that his mind was so full of his sense of his duty to science that there was no room there for any speculation not immediately associated with the science of which he hoped to be an exponent. It was not until he was free to entertain the views made visible from other standpoints that he was led to consider whether his act made for justice or injustice, for happiness or unhappiness, for right or wrong.

And actually for some time he found himself considering how he could justify himself before certain austere judges for having employed all his skill and dexterity to prolong a life which, so far as he could gather from evidence that he, for one, could not question, had never existed except for evil.

Happily his reverence for the science of life-saving was still his dominant passion, absorbing every other consideration, whether philosophical or judicial. He knew that when that man was under his knife he could not have allowed his skill to relax for a second, putting the man’s life in jeopardy, even if it was understood that the result of the man’s recovery would mean his, Philip Charwood’s, own death.

And that was something like what his action meant to him. He could not lose sight of this fact. His skill had built up once again the barrier that existed between him and the realization of what he held most dear in the world—a barrier which in his absence would have crumbled away into dust. And yet so perfected was his worship of the science of life-saving that he felt as proud as a martyr when he reflected—not that his faith had withstood the test, but that a question of its being subjected to any test had never occurred to him.

He did not know that it was Florence Thorburn who desired to enshrine the recollection of his act with her memory of the heroic Dutchman, by telling him that the man Thompson was her husband. But he had a vague appreciation of something that was in her mind when she made her revelation to him. He felt that it was in her mind that he would have resented her coming to him after the performance, and saying:

“ The man whose life you saved is my husband. I knew so much when you were going to operate upon him, but I thought it better not to tell you.”

And she had been quite sincere when she had exclaimed, “ Thank God! ”

That is what it is to be a good woman, he thought.

It did not occur to him that perhaps the impulse of gratitude to God was largely due to her feeling that the man she loved had put himself on a level with her hero.

But assuredly he felt pleased that she had told him who Thompson was before the operation had taken place and not afterward.

They did not meet again that day; he visited the man who called himself Thompson, however, and found his condition to be satisfactory. He was beginning to take an interest in the man, even going so far in this direction as to wonder what his future might be. He was a large, well-made man, probably a few years under forty; but lying there with his face thin and refined by his sufferings, Charwood was able to trace in his features some likeness to little Adela, his daughter.

And Adela was also the daughter of Florence Thorburn.

It was this thought that led him to speculate upon the man’s future. So far as soldiering was concerned, his career was over; supposing, then, that it came to his knowledge that his wife was living within easy reach of the hospital in which he was lying, what would happen on his being discharged? Was he the sort of person who would be likely to respect the decree of separation which his wife had obtained in order to free herself—up to a certain point—from his brutalities ?

He felt that it was much more likely that the man would trade upon past associations, making goodness knows what promises for amendment in his appeal to her, until at last . . .

What would happen? The appeal of a contemptible husband to the wife whose life he had made a hell for her was not outside the range of Dr. Charwood’s experience. He had known of wives who had been long-suffering for years, yielding at last to the importunity of repentant husbands, simply because it seems to be part of a woman’s nature to yield to a man’s importunity if he only perseveres. It is not a triumph of hope over experience; it is simply that a woman is by nature incapable of holding out.

So thought Philip Charwood, who had always been an earnest student of the psychology (as it is called) of sex, and it had been proved to him that there was a good deal of womanliness about Florence Thorburn— her “ Thank God!” was the latest proof he had had of her nature; and how much further she would allow herself to be carried away in the same direction be was unable to tell.

But even if she were to act the part of the hard-headed and hard-hearted woman, and reject the man’s appeal and treat him with the contempt which his conduct had earned, how would she be able to continue living as she had lived, when the man had published to the world the fact that she who had been accepted by the neighbours as a widow, was not a widow, but only a woman separated from her husband?

He knew enough of their world—the world of East Nethershire—to be well aware that she would not—that she could not remain in the place when the scandal (as it would be called) should be published. She would be forced to make a fresh start in some other neighbourhood, severing all the social ties that had bound her for the previous four or five years, and separating herself from that association with him which had been so pleasant as to cause him to remain a country doctor, rejecting the many offers that had come to him to embark in more congenial work.

His reflections and anticipations at this time were not agreeable. And yet so supreme was his devotion to the dictates of the science he worshipped that he would never have forgiven himself if he had relaxed for a moment his attention to the man’s condition. He felt bound to do the best for him, even though it meant the worst for himself and the woman whom he loved.

He had a fancy to ask the nurse who had been on night duty in the ward what form the man’s delirium had taken when he had had such lapses.

“ Did he rave about the war—the engagement in which he was wounded? ”

“ Not once,” replied the nurse.

“ Of what, then? Is he a married man? ”

The nurse blushed and then smiled.

“ I hope not,” she said.

“ How? ” he inquired, as if he had failed fully to understand the import of that unusual blush and its complementary smile.

“ Oh, well, I gathered that he had—had—lived a bit—a good many lady friends,” she replied.

“ He has not expressed a wish to communicate with any of them when normal? ”

She shook her head with the sad smile of one who has had a glimpse or two of life and doesn’t like it.

“Oh, dear no,” she said. “He’s not that sort; nor are they, I fancy.”

“ I see. I thought that perhaps—but we needn’t trouble ourselves about him. I don’t think the veronal will be wanted after to-morrow. If it is, I’ll make it four grains instead of five.”

The doctor went off on some other business. He had learned enough to satisfy himself that the man remained as he had been painted by his wife.

CHAPTER XXVIII

TWO days later—he had been giving a good deal of attention to the man and the problems that his existence suggested—he spoke to Florence seriously about her taking a rest.

“ I saw the condition you were in when I returned from Regentsand,” said he. “ I did not, of course, know the cause; it was a sufficient cause. I would have ordered you to go off duty the next day, only —I did not feel certain that I had the right; but now —you must see that there is no reason for you to remain, but very great why you should go away for at least a fortnight.”

“ How could I go? ” she asked.

“ Why should you stay? ” he said. “ The man is in no danger, I regret to say——”

“ Oh, Philip! ”

“ Why should there be a moment of insincerity— of conventional insincerity—between you and me ? ” he inquired. “ What I have said, I have said. The man is on the sure way to be himself again, and no one knows better than you what that means.”

There was a troubled look on her face. He tried to interpret it, but he was not confident of the success of his attempt. He waited for her to speak, giving her to understand that he was waiting; but a long time elapsed before she said doubtfully:

“ He is the father of my little girl. I wonder if —if-”

“ If that is any reason why you should stay to see his complete recovery—the recovery of the man who tried to make your life a hell for you, and pretty nearly succeeded too? Is that what you are wondering? ” She smiled.

“ I was not wondering it in exactly those words,”she said, and he laughed; only for a moment, however; he quickly became serious.

“ It came into your mind that perhaps it was your duty as a wife—a some-time wife—of the man to forget the brutalities of the past for which he was responsible, and to—to—show him that you have forgiven him. It occurred to you that it might make him feel easier in his mind—whether he should recover or not—to know that you had forgiven him. Isn’t that what you have been considering? ”

“ You don’t think that I am greatly to blame for having such a fancy, Philip? Of course I could never think of his ever being more than a stranger to me.”

“ That, I am sure, may be taken for granted; I am sorry that you have not taken it for granted that your appearing suddenly by the man’s bedside could not possibly mean anything but disaster, if not disgrace, to you and your child. I know enough of that type of man to feel quite convinced that he has only to be made aware of your existence to become—how shall I put it in a moderate way?—well, let us say, an intolerable nuisance—that is putting it mildly enough, goodness knows. I say he would become a more frightful burden upon your life than he ever was. Good heaven! think of his hanging about every place where you may live; you will give him money as a, matter of course, and in exacting more from you he will show a fidelity considerably in advance of any faithfulness displayed at any period in the past. To start with, how will you explain to your friends in this neighbourhood—Miss Inman, for instance—that when you came among them leading them to suppose that you were a widow, you were not a widow? ”

“I am listening to you, Philip. And what am I? I am no more than a woman listening to a man’s argument.”

“ I know what that means. When did a man’s argument ever prevail against the prompting of a woman’s heart? But then what am I? I am a man, therefore I must use argument to try to prevent one more woman from allowing her woman’s heart to make a fool of her.”

“ Don’t say that, Philip—don’t say that, please.”

“ Don’t say what?—that I am trying to prevent your heart from making a fool of you? ”

“ That is not what is on my mind. I begged of you not to say that you have nothing on your side except reason.”

“It is gracious—and womanly—of you to say so much; but, alas! I dare not, at this time and in this place, call to my aid to prevail upon you to listen to my argument any influence except that of reason and experience. Your duty? I tell you that your duty, so far from leading you to that man’s bedside to watch his recovery, should prevent you from ever going near him. You owe something to yourself and a good deal more to your child.”

“ And still more to you, Philip.”

“ Leave me out—no, I don’t ask you to leave me out of your consideration of the question; for I want to make my case as complete as possible, and I am glad to be able to add anything to the force of my appeal to you, not to allow a mistaken sense of duty to lead you to do something that can only mean ruin to us all.”

“ I am sure that you are right—quite sure.”

“ Then why speak in that doubtful tone of voice? ”

“ I don’t know. I suppose there may be a perverted sense of duty—a maudlin, sentimental impulse—”

“ I’m sure that there is; and it is the most specious guide of all that may lead a woman on to disaster. But stay; it is surely the height of foolishness to argue when one has the right to command. I’ll drop my appeal to your reason and good sense, and order you to suspend your duties in this place for a fortnight from to-morrow. Whatever I may not be, I’m certainly your medical officer, and in that capacity, for your own good—that is, the good of the hospital, I issue my order. You know that Miss Inman will co-operate with me in this matter. She is being greatly worried about your overworking yourself, and she will back me up in my action just now, and agree with me in thinking that it should have been taken long ago.”

“ I’m sure that she will, and I’m sure that she will be right. I will obey you. God only knows whether I am glad or sorry that you have taken the decision on this point out of my hands. Only—will he be able to return to the fighting line? ”

“ Never, I’m sorry to say. I wish it were in my power to send him back to get another missile into his system too deep to be probed for. Unfortunately, it is not in my power to do anything with him, except to turn him loose upon the world once more. But you may be sure that I’ll make an effort to minimize the ill turn I have done to the world in setting him on his feet again. I only hope that no one about here will tell him that the name of the matron is Florence Thorburn. It’s lucky that no one ever does mention your name—that you are never alluded to in the hearing of an inmate except as Matron. You have at least a fighting chance of escape; and, after to-day, you will not be here until that man is discharged.”

“ I have thought of that, too. I shall go away tomorrow.”

No further word was exchanged between them at that time. He went to the laboratory wondering if she was glad or sorry that he had taken a high hand with her.

And she, in the solitude of her room, wondered if she were glad or sorry that he had solved for her the question of her duty in regard to the man who had made the best years of her life miserable.

She had prayed to heaven to grant her the boon of being true to her womanhood, and perhaps she was about to realize the tragedy of an answered prayer.

She went away the next day without seeing him. It was Angela who told him that she had gone to the Bromsgroves’, where her child was staying; and Angela took the opportunity of thanking him for having been so peremptory in the matter.

“ It was only during the week of your absence that I noticed how dreadfully she had overworked herself,” said the girl. “

It was so unlike her to worry over such a case as Thompson’s; but you could have no idea how obsessed she became over that case; she was at the point of telephoning to you more than once when Mr. Walters said he was sure that the man would have to be operated on. She almost succeeded in getting me to worry over the case also.”

“ I could see the change within the week, so I thought it better to talk very plainly to her. Thank goodness, she listened to me.”

“ She hasn’t yet lost all interest in the Thompson case,” said Angela. “ She begged of me to let her know from day to day how the man was progressing, and when he was discharged; so you will please keep me posted up in regard to his condition? ”

“ You may rely on me. I am going to visit him now,”said he, and he left her for the ward where the man who called himself Thompson was lying. He was beginning to be as greatly interested in the man as he had been in the “ case ”; though as a personality Mr. Thompson did not seem to count for much in the estimation of those members of the hospital staff who had come in contact with him. They had their favourites among the patients, but so far as Philip Charwood could gather, Private Thompson was not in the foremost rank of these. For some days he had been too weak to show himself as being anything definite; his delirious nights had not revealed any lovable elements that might have been lying dormant; on the contrary they had brought a blush to the cheek of a nurse, although she had been engaged in hospital work for seven years; and now it seemed that he had reached that period of recovery in which every spare moment was given over to grumbling.

He was grumbling over the chicken breast which had formed the basis of his lunch when the doctor approached him, not directly, but by degrees, saying a word or two to a nurse after he had examined one of her charges a few beds down the ward.

“ What’s the matter? ” he asked, when he had looked at the rough outline of the peaks of the Himalayas on the nursing chart. “ Has he not eaten his chicken? ”

“ Every scrap, sir,” replied the nurse. “ But he says he’s about fed up with chicken.”

“ Well, wasn’t he to be fed up with it? ” said Philip. “ Does it lie heavy on your conscience to devour such innocent things, Thompson? We don’t greatly mind here if things lie heavy on the conscience if they don’t do so elsewhere. How are you feeling? ”

“ A durned sight worse than I would if you hadn’t interfered,” replied the man.

“ How did I interfere? I saw that you had finished your meal,” said the doctor.

“ I wasn’t thinking of the dam cheeper; what th’ ’ell right had you to drag me back to life by the hair of my head when I was to all intents and purposes as dead as a door-nail? That’s what I call interference. Is a man supposed to have no rights, because he happens to be a soldier of the King? D’ye opine that I answered to the call by reason of my affection for the Land of the Maple Leaf? ”

“You were precious near answering another call— a close call, my good fellow, if I hadn’t been handy,” said Philip.

“ That was my pidgin, not yours,” said the man. “ Who th’ ’ell gave you leave to pull me back and dump me down again in this cesspool of a world to begin it all over again when I would have had done with the infernal hole for good? ”

“ You have me there,” said Philip. “

Upon my soul, I can’t answer you that. I feel that it was a clear case of trespass. I haven’t a leg to stand on if you take up that position. The only excuse I can offer is a lame one; it is that if I hadn’t pulled you back I should have been guilty of murder.”

“ A putrid excuse! What’s murder after all? ”

“ Don’t ask me that. Have you lived so long in the world without learning what murder is? ”

The man looked at him eagerly—suspiciously—for a moment, and then gave a wretched laugh.

“ You’ve been sizing me up, friend doc.,” he said. “ You’ve about guessed the sort that I am. The sacredness of human life! Yes, till a war breaks out, and then it’s about as sacred as marriage-vows, when——” (Here Mr. Thompson became so colloquial that the exercise of censorship becomes necessary.)

“ You’re the man who has lived,” said the doctor. “ You’ve learned the value of such conventions. Was it due to your gaining this knowledge that you cursed me for not letting you pop off when you had the chance? ”

“ I’ll see you,” said Mr. Thompson, with a puzzled look in his eyes when Philip had spoken.

Philip, who had played poker at times, understood him.

“ I was only inquiring if it was because you had experience of the two—murder and matrimony—that you objected to be brought back to life,” he said casually.

The man did not reply at once. He seemed to have been so accustomed to traps laid for him by enemies posing as friends, that he had become wary.

“ Look here,” he said at last; ‘‘I’ve had to fight my corner for twenty years and more, and men who have to do that don’t get squeamish as they grow up. In warfare the Sixth Commandment is suspended, and my life had been a bit of a campaign.—Huns, well, I opine that it was Hun against Hun. We were all at it.”

“ At the front? ”

“Oh, you juggins! I thought you were asking me about my life at large, not merely this rotten accident in France. ”

“ So I was, and so I judged your reply to refer to some episodes of the past. And in that campaign which you called your life, I suppose you took it for granted that the seventh Commandment as well as the fifth was suspended.”

The man winked and then laughed.

“ They’re the very devil, these women! ” he said. “ If it wasn’t for two or three of the same sex, I wouldn’t have been such a fool as to be a Colonial patriot—is there such a thing as a Colonial patriot, do you fancy? ”

“ I’m sure of it. And it was on account of them you felt badly disposed to me for giving you a new lease of life? I don’t suppose a man like you has much use for matrimony.”

“ Not me; no more’n a bee—flower to flower, you know—that’s nature.”

“ Bee nature? ”

“ Human nature. But I was married once. Lord James! that made no difference. The marriage ceremony’s not nature.”

“ Wife living? Wouldn’t you like her to be written to, if only to let her know that you’re not dead? ”

The man looked at him with revolting shrewdness.

“ My good man, you mean well, but—you haven’t just sized me up to the last—decimal. Wife? Lord James! She was the least of all my adventures. It was a three months’ affair. Durned if I’d know her if she came in at that door this minute.”

Philip gave a start and looked apprehensively toward the door.

But Florence did not put in an appearance. The scene was in the ward of a real hospital, not one built on the stage of a theatre. That should have been the cue for her entrance. For a moment Philip Charwood forgot that he had insisted on her going away. He felt himself to be a regular marplot.

“ I give you my word I couldn’t tell now what was the colour of her hair,” continued the man. “ How would a shepherd know one sheep from another after eight or ten years. Mutton is mutton. Woman is woman. They all taste alike, only men are fools enough to fancy Southdowns one time, Welsh another, and then Highland for a change. Funny! her name was Flo— I mind that, but blest if I can tell at this time what her surname was.”

“ You’ve a short memory,” said the auditor. “ I suppose it’s absolutely necessary for a man who sets out to live as you have done to have a short memory. You’ve no wish ever to see her again? ”

“ Not me. What for would I want to see her, tell me that? ”

“ But if she wished to see you? ”

“ How you go on! What for would she wish to see me? I expect her memory is longer’n mine. She has most likely remembered me in her prayers every night and cursed me proper.”

“ Some women can pray, even for their husbands.”

“ Don’t you try to tell me anything I don’t know about women, friend doc. What I don’t know isn’t knowledge. I’ll tell you what the sex is. It’s——”

(Here again Mr. Thompson played deliberately into the hands of the Censor—the President of the Excise Department.)

When he had closed his pithy analysis of the sex he laughed. Dr. Charwood rose.

“ I’m afraid that I have gone too far in trying to cheer you up,” he said. “ But you led me on. I wondered what your life had been that you should so resent the liberty I took in snatching you from the brink of hell.” “ Well, I opine that you know now,” said the man. “ I’ve been some blackguard—some blighter, eh? ”

“ The greatest that I ever spoke to. And you’re so sick of the trough with the husks that you abused me for giving you a chance of returning to it. You’re the most powerful argument I’ve ever met for a clean life. But never fear, I’ll have you ready for the husks again— the husks and the swill of the trough.”

The man was curiously solemn for a whole minute; then he raised his head and cried in a voice of raucous vituperation:

“ What th’ ’ell do you mean by coming to preach here? Haven’t you done mischief enough setting me loose once more when, by good luck, I should have had it all ended? You for a sky pilot! You that flew in the face of Providence and the Will of Heaven and that, by dragging me back to life! You’re a pretty sort to talk of God! ” Dr. Charwood had not mentioned the name; but he saw that it would be unprofessional to contradict his far-seeing patient. He knew that he had been unprofessional enough already.

And that was the result of his conversation with Mrs. Thorburn’s husband.

He was told at the door that Miss Inman was looking for him, and while the orderly was so informing him, Miss Inman herself appeared, hurrying toward him. Her face was pale. She was plainly excited.

“ I have been looking for you,” she said. “ What is the matter with Trooper Nicholson? He has been giving it out in the Convalescent Ward that the man whose name is in this morning’s papers—George Paul —is Mark—the original of Mark’s portrait. Have you heard that? ”

“ I heard that a long time ago; but I talked to him and I understood that he abandoned his position,” replied Charwood.

“ He certainly has recovered it since; I heard him bragging about it just now. He wouldn’t be silent— bragging about his comrade, George Paul, who carried the trench almost single-handed when his officers were killed—you saw it in the papers? ”

“ I daresay. It is impossible to remember the acts of heroism from day to day in this war. But you must not allow yourself to be affected by the random talk of that man. There may be some resemblance—there must be indeed, but we know that it can be nothing more than a resemblance. Confound the fellow! he has quite upset you. I must have another talk with him.”

“ I have had a talk with him,” said Angela.

“ My poor child! ” said he. “ My poor child! If you only knew how little dependence is to be placed in these imaginary likenesses! I have never known anything but disappointment to come of that sort of thing. Why, I tell you that Nicholson was ready to admit long ago that the only point of resemblance between his comrade and the picture was in the moustaches. You mustn’t listen to him.”

“ It is too late to give me that advice; I have listened to him,” she said.

CHAPTER XXIX

DR. CHARWOOD looked at her. She was greatly excited, he could see. She was not trembling at that moment, but he knew that she had been greatly shaken by what the trooper had said in her hearing. She was now like someone who has seen a ghost.

And that was exactly what her perturbation amounted to ; only she had not seen the ghost herself; it was someone else who had seen it and given his account of it to her; but the effect was the same.

Dr. Charwood had a pretty wide experience of young women who had seen ghosts with their own eyes, as well as through the eyes of other people, and he had long ago become aware of the difficulty of dealing with such cases. He knew that in certain circumstances and with certain temperaments and, above all, with uncertain digestions, the girl and the ghost are constant companions. He had long ago given up every attempt to convince the girl that she had not seen a ghost, and he knew that he was wise in this matter; the fact being that the girl had seen the ghost, only it had been reflected on the mirror of her eyes from the wrong side—from within instead of without. But he had not quite given up all hope of being able to convince a girl here and there that the ghost seen by someone else was impossible.

Angela’s case was not quite hopeless. She was a young woman to whom he could talk, and since her following of the advice he had given her in regard to her mother had been attended by such good results, he thought that she might have confidence in him.

“ May I go with you to your room? ” he said.

“ Oh, do,” she said. “ I should like to hear just what you think—you will tell just what you think— I know it will be right.”

The room which she used as an office was halfway down the corridor. They entered it together.

“ I am glad that you came to me,” he said. “ I am anxious to save you from—from—from what? A bitter disappointment—a shocking suspense that can have only one ending.”

“ I am sure of it,” she said quickly; “ but the man is so positive—I wondered—oh, I don’t know what to think.”

“ He is more positive since his comrade has become a hero—one of the many heroes of this month,” said Philip. “ When I questioned him closely some time ago, he allowed me to part from him believing that he had gone back on his first statement and was ready to acknowledge that, after all, there was not so great a resemblance between the gentleman in the picture and his comrade who had been called ’ Gentleman George ’ in the regiment.”

“ Yes; he called him ‘ Gentleman George ’—that made me feel that perhaps—”

“ Oh, yes; I understand; but think what the coincidence of the ‘ gentleman ’ amounts to. We all know that this campaign is not just as so many others have been, when only perhaps three or four men in the ranks would run the chance of being called Gentleman This or Gentleman That, after the manner of soldiers.

We know that hundreds and thousands of men occupying good positions enlisted, and are still enlisting as privates or troopers. If the soldiers were to carry out their ordinary practice, the half of every regiment would be called ‘ Gentleman Jack ’ or ’ Gentleman Reggie.’ So you see there is not much of a coincidence in the man who resembled poor Mark in appearance coming from the same rank of life.”

“I see so much, of course; but the man is so positive-”

“ What signifies his being positive now when he was ready to take back his positiveness on the first day he entered the Convalescent Ward and stood face to face with the picture? ”

“ You don’t think that he was ready only because you made him feel like a fool by telling him that the original of the picture was dead? ”

“ That’s quite possible. I tell yon now quite frankly that what he said to me set me thinking—asking myself if by any possibility—I have come across so many strange things in my time that 1 would be ready to believe almost anything; in fact, the stranger an occurrence is, the more likely it is to be true, I have found; so it is with coincidences; there is really only one thing that may be depended on—that is death. I thought over Nicholson’s story—after all, it was no story; it was only a question of his ability to pronounce an opinion on a point on which the most discriminating of people almost invariably differ—a question of resemblance. Do you remember hearing of the Beck case a few years ago? ”

“ Perfectly well. It was very sad, a man was sent to prison because of his likeness to another man.”

“ That was it; and it happened twice. Quite a number of people swore that he was the man who had committed the crime, although several declared that the criminal bore certain scars on his face which were not on the face of the man who was convicted. And that case docs not stand alone, mind you. Mistaken identity, it is called. Instances occur every week, and all through a fatal facility on the part of most people to see a likeness between two people when none really exists. Have you never at any time of your life been taken for someone else? I have been several times. Positively, I cannot say that I have ever asked anyone that question without the reply being as I expected. Positively, I have never yet come across anyone who was not, at some time, taken for someone else. And are we to say, in the face of what we know to be the truth—the sad and dreadful truth—that the evidence of this Trooper Nicholson, on the subject of a likeness between a comrade whom he has never seen except in khaki uniform, and the Mark Rowland of that picture—Mark Rowland in a black overcoat, is to be accepted without protest? That is what I asked myself when I was thinking over the matter.”

“ But you had to think over it—you did not at once go away feeling that the man had been talking foolishly? ”

“ I felt that I was bound to consider all that the man had said—I told you just now that I would never think of anything as outside the bounds of possibility.’’

“ Except the one thing.”

“ Except the one thing; and that is the one important factor in this case, is it not? ”

“I am sure that you are right, only—well, you have told me exactly the impression made upon you by all the man said on the first day he was in the Convalescent Ward, and I think that that is exactly the impression produced on my mind by what he said to me to-day.”

“ Then I don’t think you can do better than I did: consider the matter from every standpoint, and I’m sure that yon will come to my conclusion—believe me, it is the only possible conclusion. I have not taken the trouble to speak again to Nicholson about it since I returned from Regentsand—in fact I had dismissed the incident from my mind. I hope that you will do the same.”

“ I hope that I shall be able.”

She was seated close to her table, not looking at him as she spoke, but vacantly—wistfully—out of the window. There was a long pause before she said:

“ Dr. Charwood, you will forgive me, I know, for being so foolish as still to wonder if it were possible that Mark should have escaped, after all. You must remember that it was not like an ordinary accident in which one sees what has been done: it was only left for us to assume that he was lying beneath that horrible mass of broken rock.”

She bowed her head down to the table and was shaken with sobs for several minutes.

He sat far away from her, feeling helpless to say any word of comfort to her, though he had never felt a deeper sympathy for anyone in trouble than he did for her. What could he say? He was not one who could bring himself to speak any word that should encourage her to hope for something that he himself could not believe possible to be realized. An hour’s hope on such a foundation could only be purchased at the cost of an everlasting disappointment. He had seldom felt more helpless.

And he was well aware that his silence was but adding to the poignancy of the girl’s grief. But still he was silent. What would be the good of assuring her that he sympathized with her? The moment was not one for the utterance of a conventional phrase, even though it should embody the truth.

At last her sobs became less frequent. She raised her head.

“ I need not say anything to you; you understand,” she said when, after a struggle, she found her voice.

“ Yes; I think I understand what is meant by a hopeless love,” he said gently. “ Your work here— your feeling, day and night, that it was inspired by him whom you lost, helped you to bear the burden that was laid upon you; and you have borne it nobly—so nobly that you will not allow a few foolish words spoken by a thoughtless man make you feel that it is intolerable.”

“ Oh, if I could but have seen him lying there before me, I feel that I could have gone on until I died and came face to face with him again. But now—now— the doubt—the hope which I know to be false—it is more than I can bear. I feel like a drowning man who has his hand on a mock lifebuoy; he knows it to be a mockery, but still he clings to it: he is not strong enough to cast it from him and trust to his own swimming. That is how I feel. God help me—God help me! ”

She gave him her hand. He held it in one of his own for some moments. When she took it back, he rose.

“ God comfort you,” he said.

“ There is no comfort for me on earth,” she said in a very piteous voice, her face averted from him once more.

He could make no answer to her. He knew that there is a conventional reply to such a moan, but he could not utter it in that room and in the presence of a grief so sacred as to make any attempt at referring to heaven for its consolation seem profane.

He went out of the room without a word.

CHAPTER XXX

PHILIP CHARWOOD went straight to his laboratory. This was the apartment to which he repaired when he found it necessary to compose himself; and during the week he had been glad of the sanctuary that it offered to him. He had been greatly affected by his interview with Angela; he had felt so helpless in her presence. It was as though the atmosphere of that room had become so impregnated with her grief that he had felt himself, through breathing of it, becoming assimilated to her condition. Poor girl! she had borne her burden nobly, as he had told her. But he knew that her work had been the saving of her. It had absorbed every hour of her life. He knew, however, that Angela this day was very different from the Angela of three months ago. The work had begun to tell upon her just as it had upon Florence, and an untoward incident in her case, as well as in the case of Florence, had gone far to bring about a nervous breakdown. He was certain that a couple of months earlier Angela would have been able to place its true value upon the talk of Trooper Nicholson, and to get rid of whatever effect it might have upon her as easily as he had cleared his mind of the man’s chatter. But now she had failed to do so, and he had failed to make her see how little dependence could be placed upon anything that she had heard in that Convalescent Ward.

He had prescribed for Florence Thorburn and had taken care to enforce his views upon her in time, he hoped, to save her. But the fact of her coming to him and talking in the strain she had adopted about her duty and its bearing upon that contemptible hound to whom she was chained, showed him pretty clearly how far run down she was. When women are in perfect health, with their nerves in order, or, at any rate, as nearly in order as a woman’s nerves can ever be, they do not have qualms as to whether they are doing their whole duty or not: they simply do their duty. She had had no qualms about kissing him when he had told her that he loved her and she acknowledged that she loved him. On that evening she had taken the robust view of her duty. She had seen clearly that duty is what one owes to another, and it did not take her long to make up her mind that she owed him, Philip Charwood, love and fidelity, and to the wretch who had done his best to wreck her life, contempt and loathing. But with the shattering of her nerves had come that uneasiness which she had expressed to him, as to whether her duty did not demand something from her in regard to the man who had even (though she did not know this) forgotten her very name.

That condition of hers which had made itself manifest to him through such symptoms was a morbid one, and he congratulated himself on having been firm in dealing with it. He had packed her off without a moment’s delay, and he would treat Angela in the same way. He could not, if it were only for the sake of the hospital, afford to run the chance of the two chiefs of the staff breaking down at the same time.

(And in the next room but one, young Mr. Stone and Surgeon Walters were exchanging views regarding the health of Dr. Charwood, and they agreed that while he had operated upon that fellow Thompson with consummate skill and his usual confidence in himself at the most trying moment, yet he had shown what Mr. Stone termed a quiet fussiness more than once respecting the administration of the anaesthetic, which he had never done before. He seemed to be overstrung, they thought—his nerves were at too high a tension—and they hoped he was not approaching a nervous breakdown. They rather thought that someone should take him in hand and insist on his having a complete rest before it should be too late.)

It was quite an hour before Dr. Charwood had pulled himself together and left his laboratory in order to command Trooper Nicholson to brag about some other matter, rather than his acquaintance with the original of Mr. Brookman’s fine portrait. He meant to be very severe with Trooper Nicholson for his chatter.

But after some consideration he came to the conclusion that if he were to take upon himself the duties of censorship, too much notice would be directed to the incident, and possibly gossiping questions would be exchanged among the nurses, for, now and again, a germ of gossip has been known to find its way into a ward of a Red Cross hospital in spite of the most rigid aseptic precautions. He thought it better to treat the man’s chatter as though it were unworthy of serious notice. After all, that would be the best way to put a stop to it.

He sent for the nurse in whose charge the Thompson case had been placed, and when she arrived he gave her some special instructions regarding another patient whose chart had not been so satisfactory as it might have been; and she had actually left his room before he said, as if suddenly remembering something of minor importance:

“ Oh, by the way, what has that man Nicholson been jabbering about—something about the picture still? ”

“ He has got it into his head that the gentleman in the picture is the same as Paul, the sergeant in the Sabrers whose name is in the papers to-day. You know, sir—the man who took command when the officers were killed and carried the trench.”

“ I haven’t read the papers yet. Just tell the man to turn his brag into another channel,” said the Doctor. “ Everybody knows that the gentleman in the portrait has been dead some months. Give Nicholson to understand that there’s to be no more gassing about that particular comrade of his.”

“ I’ll talk to him, never fear, sir,” said the nurse. “ I’ve checked him more than once about it; I believe it came to Miss Inman’s ears.”

“You don’t say so? Confound the fellow! talk to him straight, sister. We’ll want no more of it. The man’s clearly a bit of an ass.”

“ Not so much as to go against orders, sir. I’ll see to it.”

“ Thank you.”

The sister went away, and the doctor sent his orderly for a newspaper.

He found that the account given of the heroism of Sergeant Paul differed only in some unimportant details from the daily stories of heroism which had been appearing in the newspapers since the beginning of the war. The man had been in a trench when it was attacked by a German force. The attempt had been unsuccessful, the English having repulsed three separate assaults, and after the third the order was given to follow up the retreating enemy with bayonets, and it was carried out with splendid impetuosity. The regiment of Sabrers, however, had gone too far beyond the lines, as cavalry doing trench duty would, and were all but cut off from the main body. All the officers were put out of action, when Paul, who had only been made a sergeant the day before, rallied the men, and instead of trying to cut a way back to their lines, had actually rushed a German trench and held it until their own reinforcements had captured the space between the two trenches and relieved them. It had plainly been a very smart piece of work, and so was given a black headline all to itself in the papers.

SPLENDID EXPLOIT OF ONE-DAY SERGEANT
TURNING THE TABLES ON THE HUNS
A HAMMERSMITH HERO

These were the attractive headings of one of the columns relating to the war. It appeared that Sergeant Paul had enlisted at Hammersmith, and one of the papers went so far as to announce that Hammersmith was proud of its hero.

It was this information that took the attention of Dr. Charwood. He marked the passage in the paper and sent it to Angela. She must, he knew, have read an account of the exploit in a paper that was not so well informed, or she would not have given any thought to the chatter of Nicholson of the broken knee-cap. But for that matter, if she were not at the point of breaking down through overwork, she would not have been affected for more than a few minutes by the man’s discovery of the resemblance between the features in the portrait and those of his comrade George Paul, of Hammersmith. He hoped that she would prove as ready to take his advice as Florence had shown herself; but he had his doubts on this point. She had, he knew, a reputation for firmness, and upon more than one occasion he had had personal experience of her exercise of this trait. She had backed him up in his attitude in regard to some point of administration that diverged from the usual custom, and by the aid of her firmness the point had been carried. At that time he had regarded her firmness as a virtue; but if she made up her mind now, that she did not stand in need of a complete rest from her duties, he was not sure that he would think of it in the same light.

After some consideration he determined to bring the influence of her mother to bear upon her for her own salvation; and the fact that he could even think of Mrs. Inman in this connection showed what had been the result of Angela’s following his prescription in regard to her mother. As he had assured her would be the case, her mother had become a changed woman. Her health seemed to be the one topic in which she took no interest. She had set about the carrying out of a large gardening scheme, and it occupied all her thoughts. She had been in weekly consultation with the man who had told her exactly how the lily pond should be made; she found that he was an authority upon the construction of terraces as well; and she had started upon the important work of a York stone paved walk with a Greek temple after one of those at Stowe at the end, superintending every part of the design herself. A few months earlier, she had had no initiative in regard to any matter— not even excepting her own health; she had been wholly in the hands of her daughter; but now her medical adviser was actually thinking of appealing to her to help him to prevent a disastrous breakdown in her daughter’s health!

He lost no time in putting his plan in execution. He motored to Mrs. Inman’s and found her superintending the placing of the largest stones in that most admired disorder which is essential to the success of a rock garden. The day was a cold one and there had been rain in the morning—the sort of day that, had it occurred at the beginning of autumn, would have found the lady in bed, a roaring fire in the grate, and the bell-pull drawn far out of the perpendicular, to allow of its being within easy reach of her hand, to summon Angela—if Angela had chanced to absent herself for five minutes from her attendance.

To-day she was not especially wrapped up. The perplexed young woman who admitted the doctor, as she had frequently done before, was almost moved to tears as she confided in him her belief that Mrs. Inman was taking no care of herself and had been equally neglectful for the past month.

“ Her that was laid up usually if a window was left open for so much as half an inch,” complained the young woman, going into the details of her mistress’s recklessness. “ There she goes and stays out when the men themselves are driven into the potting-shed by the rain. I do wish you’d have a talk to her, Doctor; she never heeds me.”

“ I certainly will,” said he. “ I’ll go and find her for myself and give her a good talking to.”

“ You’ll be sure to come on her where they’re making the rock garden,” said she, and sure enough, that was where he found her.

She explained to him the difficulty she had in inducing the men to refrain from treating her scheme as if it were the building of a wall of stone. They were accustomed to build in regular “ courses,” and so they had made up their minds that the rock garden should be treated. She had actually found them one day, when she had been absent for a short time, squaring her beautifully irregular lumps of soft stone, knocking off all the uneven edges and trimming the broken surfaces, so that they should all fit closely together; and when she had, after infinite overseeing, got the block disarranged, she had heard one of the men telling another that he had never seen anything so untidy in all his life.

“ That was the greatest praise he could possibly have given to your design,” said Philip, with a laugh.

Then she led him to where the lily-pond was shimmering over the cement, and explained the scheme of drainage which she had invented, and from which she expected the best results. She was not sure, however, how she should treat the circular border, so as to make it seem a freak of nature instead of a design of art. It was a nice question and not one to be decided in a moment, she told him; and he agreed with her.

It was some time before he could approach the object of his visit, for he knew he would have to be very tactful in suggesting that any member of her family could be otherwise than robust; and when at last he mentioned his fear lest Angela’s devotion to her work might be too much for her, Mrs. Inman seemed greatly surprised.

“ But we have all been so strong this winter,” she cried. “ I have never felt better in all my life.”

He did not try to make her see that the fact of her feeling extremely well was no guarantee that her daughter would remain permanently in good health. He was tactful.

“ The fact is, my dear Mrs. Inman, that she needs looking after by you,” said he. “ A hospital is not the same as a home, nor can all the care which one gets there compensate for the absence of a mother.” (He felt himself blushing on giving expression to such sentimental drivel. What he felt inclined to say was, that as her daughter had nursed her for several years, it might not be too much to expect that she would nurse her daughter for a few weeks. But he was tactful, and ashamed of himself for it.)

“ Has she been complaining? ” asked the mother, without showing any special uneasiness—any special interest—in his daring theory.

“ She is not the sort of girl who would complain—that is the worst of it,” he replied. “ She would go on until she dropped, without a word of complaint; but we cannot allow that to happen; for she might never be the same again.”

“ Is that so? ” asked the lady. “ Poor Angela! I feared that this hospital freak of hers would end disastrously. But I know what is the matter; she has not been enough in the fresh air.”

“ Indeed she has not—not nearly enough,” he agreed. “ Now, if you could get her here with you for a week or two, helping you in your work——”

” She would interfere—1 know she would interfere —her one fault from the time she left school was a desire to interfere. So my brother said from the first, when she compelled him to sell both his hunters and so practically to give up hunting. That was when she took over the management of the property. Now, haven’t you found her to interfere with things at the hospital? ”

“ I have indeed—she has something to say on every subject that crops up—that is how it comes that she is at the point of breaking down. I can do nothing with her, and so I appeal to you, Mrs. Inman, to take her in hand. I promise you that she will not be in a mood for interfering in any way.”

“ But will she promise, do you think? ”

“ I will take care that she does, and that she keeps her promise as well.”

“ Well, if that is so, I have no objection to have her for a week or two; but, remember, if she interferes— if she begins to dictate to me what I am to eat or drink, or insists on having a fire in her bedroom, upsetting my arrangements, I shall send her back to the hospital, She was perpetually prescribing diets for me, Doctor, and if I had submitted to it, coddling me as if I were a child or an invalid.”

“ Ah, happily you were not one to submit to that.”

“ I did submit now and again for the sake of peace; but now that I can be myself, I am determined to enjoy my liberty.”

“ That is the proper spirit. Now, you must go to her to-morrow, and let me advise you, show yourself at once to be as determined as she has been—more so, in fact. Insist on her accompanying you away, no matter what she may say—no matter what objection she may bring forward. That will be the saving of her.”

“ You may trust me. Have you time just now to see where I intend to make a moraine garden? I fancy that I’ve found the ideal site for one.”

He found that he had just enough time to allow of his having a glance at the excavations at the bottom of the garden, where there was a natural fissure which he pronounced (at the suggestion of the lady) an ideal site for a moraine garden. He expressed the opinion that Nature had certainly intended to turn this piece of ground into a moraine garden some day when she had time.

He then drove back to the hospital, and went at once to Angela’s room.

“ I’ve been to see your mother,” he said. “ She is coming here to-morrow to take you away with her for some days—a week or so.”

“ What on earth made you do this? ” she cried. “ How is it possible for Mrs. Thorburn and me to be absent at the same time? ”

“ Sister Marsden will manage everything quite well enough to go on with,” he replied.

“ Perhaps. But why—I cannot understand why you should take such a high-handed course, Dr. Charwood,” she said. “ Why should I be taken from my work so suddenly? I should surely know if there was anything the matter with me, and except for feeling a little fagged—nothing worth speaking about—I was never—”

“ My dear Miss Inman,” said he, “ I think you have some confidence in me as an adviser, and, if so, do you really fancy that I would be so peremptory unless I believed that a catastrophe was imminent? You have done wonders during the past four months; I watched you from day to day, letting you go on just as far as I saw you could go; I did not wish to stop you a single day before it was necessary that you should be stopped. But now that day has come. You will not refuse to obey me, I’m sure. If you were to do so, it would mean, I’m afraid, that I could not conscientiously allow any more patients to come to this hospital.”

“ What, you really mean—”

” I do really mean that a rest of at least a week, on your part, is vital to the best interests of the hospital, and that week must begin to-morrow.”

Miss Inman looked at him strangely for nearly a whole minute, and then she dropped into a chair and burst into tears—that was the second time within six hours that he had seen her so affected; and if anything was needed to confirm the opinion he had formed as to her condition, this incident would have been quite sufficient. Angela was completely run down.

He did not wait, as he had done before, until she had recovered from her nervous paroxysm. He went quietly from the room and shut the door behind him. He felt that if he had remained he might have been weak enough to discuss with her the arrangements that he had made with her mother. He went to his own room and sent for Sister Marsden, a most competent member of the nursing staff, who had been decorated for her services during the South African campaign.

The interview that he had with this lady was of a highly satisfactory character, both to her and himself. It would not be the first time for her to be placed in sole charge of a hospital.

He did not trouble himself any further, at that time, with Miss Inman. He foresaw the trouble that he would have a week later, trying to get her to stay away for another week. There was no use in anticipating so difficult a duty.

But before he slept he was rung up from District Headquarters at Regentsand, to summon him to a Council of Medical Officers to be held the next day.

And thus it happened that at the same time, the matron, the secretary and the medical consultant were absent from the hospital, and yet the routine of the establishment went on as usual.

CHAPTER XXXI

DR. CHARWOOD, in addition to his attendance at the Council of the Red Cross, had large arrears of office work to go through at Regentsand; and then there were two or three cases of great surgical interest at the Palace Hospital to which his attention was asked, so that the first three days of his return to his office by the Channel did not afford him many hours of idleness. It was on the morning of the third day that he found that the name of Sergeant Paul had once more charged into the headlines of the newspapers. The gallant soldier had not been the hero of any other exploit; but there had been another trench tussle and, when fighting his corner, he had been severely wounded.

There was the fortune of war—“ the fickle, frolicsome fortune of war,” one newspaper commentator termed it; the man who some days before had met death face to face at a time when the hazard seemed direct, but who had come out of the ordeal without a scratch, had been struck down by a stray piece of shell in what was only deserving of the name of a “ scrap ” —a fight in which not two hundred men on both sides had been engaged during a spare half-hour—a sort of hors d’æuvre to the great action which had followed within a few hours. It was feared that the unlucky sergeant would not survive to wear the V.C. which he had won by his courage in the face of such terrible odds as would have caused the boldest soldier to pause without being accounted a coward, the newspaper comment ran.

“ Well, so much for Sergeant Paul, of Hammersmith,” thought Dr. Charwood. If it had not been for the foolishness of his comrade, Nicholson, the vicissitudes of Sergeant Paul would not have been remembered by the doctor from one day to another, for every day brought its tales of heroism, as well as the toll of the war in the form of the long lists of names of the killed, the wounded, and the missing. “ So much for Sergeant Paul,” thought Dr. Charwood; but he was destined not to have heard the last of the man, for his telephone operator at Headquarters announced to him the next morning that a message had just come, asking the College Hospital to prepare for Sergeant Paul and twenty-seven men who were to travel direct from the steamer by the ambulance train. It seemed, too, that information regarding the ambulance train was available to the public, for he noticed on the contents bill of one of the local newspapers the announcement that Paul was coming. He might have been the star artiste of a music-hall, his name was in such prominence, and Dr. Charwood might have been an habitue of one of these palaces of varieties, so greatly interested as he was in the announcement. He made up his mind that he would meet the train, get the man pointed out to him—he had no confidence in his own ability to identify him on the basis suggested by Nicholson—and then satisfy Angela—for he had a feeling that she was not yet quite satisfied—that what he had told her regarding the untrustworthiness of a trooper’s judgment on a point of resemblance between two faces (one of them in a picture) was correct.

He accompanied the Red Cross officer who was to superintend the detraining, to the railway station; and their motor had to go cautiously on account of the crowd that had collected around the approach to the building; only upon the occasion of the arrival of the first batch of wounded Indians had there been so eager a crowd. And within the terminus itself the police had some trouble in securing access to the platforms for passengers going to their trains.

As usual, the arrangements made for receiving the wounded men were excellent. The long line of ambulances were drawn up at the side of the platform to which the train was to come, so that the men would not have to be carried further than ten feet from the stretchers in the railway carriages to those in the ambulance vans; but even before the wide doors on each side of the platform were opened, the crowds around the gates had begun to cheer. No superintending instructions had to be given to the Red Cross attendants. Dr. Charwood and the other officer had only to stand by while the helpless passengers were lifted from their cots in the train to those in the vans; and each van as it received its burden was closed and silently driven away. Hats were raised and cheers were given from time to time as the grey procession moved through the gates.

“ Good God! ” cried Philip Charwood when the officer beside him said:

“ There’s the chap that there’s been all the talk about,” for turning his head from an ambulance van that had just received an interestingly-wounded youth, he saw Mark Rowland on a stretcher being borne to the next vehicle.

His face was deathly white and his eyes were closed; a scientific bandage crossed his forehead and another held the splints of his left arm across his chest, but the man was Mark Rowland.

“ Hallo! ” said the officer; “ what have they done? I saw nothing.”

But Philip had only been unprofessional for a second.

“ A startling likeness,” he said. “ Someone I knew—”

He was still looking at the man on the stretcher when the bearers turned to get him into the van. At that second there came a cry from the next platform; there stood Angela Inman, her head bent forward, her face almost as white as that of the man on whom the ambulance door had closed, and her hands clutching at the rail that was meant to keep unauthorized passengers off the detraining platform.

He was by her side in a moment; and then she had transferred her convulsive fingers to his khaki sleeve.

“ You saw—you saw! ” she gasped. “ No, don’t fear for me; I’m not going to faint. But you saw—I am not a fool—no, no; it is not that my eyes—you told me— people sometimes see things when they are run down— but you saw—oh, for God’s sake, tell me—you saw——”

“ I saw Mark Rowland,” he said. “ At least—I don’t know what to say—it may be that we are both mistaken—oh, we must be mistaken. You must prepare to be disappointed. It is impossible that that man should be Mark.”

He felt her hands relax on his sleeve. He was preparing to support her should she faint; but then he saw that she was not going to faint. She was looking calmly down the platform.

‘‘It is not impossible,” she said, in an even tone of voice. “It is not; for there is his brother Rupert, and he can tell us all about it.”

And it was indeed Rupert who came toward them, not in too great a hurry, and perfectly composed, as befitted a high official of an important Government office.

“ My dear Angela, you saw him,” he said. “ He doesn’t look very fit, does he? But it’s only a compound fracture, I hear, and a tuft of hair carried away from his crown. You got my telegram, I see. I suppose you are here on duty, Charwood? They say you’re some organizer.”

“ I got no telegram,” said she. “ I saw by the papers that Sergeant Paul was to arrive, and I wondered if the likeness—I had not much hope, but still——”

“ What likeness is that? ” asked Rupert. “ And why didn’t you get the telegram? I sent it to the hospital so that there might be no delay.”

“ I have been at home for some days and no letters or telegrams were to be sent to me—it was Dr. Charwood who made that order,” said she. “ But why talk about that? Why on earth can’t you say how—how—how everything has happened. Oh, Rupert—oh, Rupert! is it a miracle? Mark alive? Mark alive! And you knew it.”

“ Look here, Angela, I don’t know what you think, but I know what I know, and that is that Mark has made us look a bit foolish. It would have all been well enough if he had been killed. He went out to be killed, you know.”

“ But we don’t know,” cried Philip.

“ Oh, all the things that we don’t know would take some time telling; but just now I can only take in one thing—that’s enough for me—for the present,” said Angela.

“ I suppose so: you are thinking that after all the fuss your memorial hospital is a fraud,” said Rupert blandly.

“ But don’t blame him for that—at least not wholly! How could he tell that you meant to spend your money over that? You’ll have a job shutting it up now that it’s started.”

“ I shall keep it on as a thank-offering for his being restored to me,” said she.

“ Arc we to stay here all day? ” inquired Philip. “ I can understand that you would be satisfied with the knowledge of one fact only; but I’ve always had a thirst for knowledge, and there’s a good deal that I should like to know. Had we not better get off to my rooms and talk over everything? It would not be advisable for you to see any more of Mark for to-day, Miss Inman.”

“ I don’t want to. Oh, Doctor Charwood, tell me what has happened,” cried Angela.

“ I want to catch a good train back to town: I only got one day’s leave,” said Rupert. “ Heaven only knows what mayn’t happen in my absence. I’ll not leave this railway station. After some years devoted to the art of precis composition, I think I can give you an emergency ration of the whole swindle. What is it you want particularly to know, Charwood? ”

“ Well, for a beginning, let us have the beginning,” said Charwood. “ How was it that he got from beneath that hundred-ton mass that slipped from the cliff at Plassid Point? ”

“ The same way that Sir Roger de Coverley’s ancestor escaped being killed at the battle of Worcester—by not being there,” replied Rupert, who had a name-interest in the battle of Worcester and all connected with it. “ He told me how he did it. While you were hauling the last of those chaps up the cliff a heap of it fell, and he was smart enough to see that it would be as much as his place would be worth to stay for another fall, so he did an unostentatious bunk; in vulgar prose, he started on a crawl round the rocks close to the sea, and he was a good way off before he heard that earthquake above him, but well to one side. Well, there was only one way up the cliffs, and that was a quarter of a mile further on; but he reached the place while you were bothering about him with your lanterns and ropes and things where the rocks had fallen. And when he found himself all right, and he was about to return to you at Plassid Point, it occurred to him that it was a great pity he had not got rid of you all and your worrying him about his heart, by being killed. He had become obsessed by the idea that he would have to live a life of shame through not going to the front to fight; and then he seems to have had the inspiration which has led to all this mischief, and he made up his mind to pass for dead. That was the only way that he could release his fiancee from being the sharer of his shame—those were his words to me— for all the world like an idiot in a novel. It made me feel ill to hear him—oh, yes, I heard him; for he walked back to his hotel at Eastchurch and squared the old waiter not to say anything about his return, and then came back to town and appeared in my rooms before I had set out for my office. By the Lord Jeremiah, he was in a bad way about all you told him about his heart, Charwood. No matter; he confederated me; and off he went to Hammersmith one day when there were a couple of thousand recruits to be passed. Lord knows the lies he told, but he gave me his word that the medical officer was examining men at the rate of a thousand an hour, and passing them in batches, on the same principle that the Revenue men at the douane pass the luggage— singling out some particular handbag, examining it thoroughly, and then passing the lot. Still, he tried on some trick to make sure; said he thought it only right to confess that he had a touch of what you call it— emphysema—and the chap tested him for this and passed him all right. What are you grinning about, Charwood? Did you ever examine men at the rate of a thousand an hour? ”

“ Never—never—never! ”

“ Then you can’t know so much about it as to make you grin in that way. After all, it was you that told him about that precious emphysema.”

“ So it was: it wasn’t much to tell about.”

“ And I don’t suppose that he told much about it. He told even less about his heart; but I will say that up to the last he believed what you had told him about his heart, though his modesty prevented him from bragging about it to the medical examiner. Still, from what he said to me, I know that he never expected to come back: he thought that that heart of his would have finished him if the shells of the Huns missed him. That, I expect, is why he did things that no intelligent man would have done. Fancy any man with a heart to look carefully after, rushing that trench! I’m sure that I told him almost in my farewell words to avoid all excitement and that—yes, lifting heavy weights, throwing the hammer—I did what I could.”

“ I’m sure of it,” said Angela, who had a better appreciation than he could have of when a story had come to an end. “ I’m sure of it; we all did our best; but when that grim Figure with a dart in one hand and a V.C. in the other stands in front of a man like Mark, all that we can say or do counts for nothing.”

She would not put up her handkerchief; she allowed her tears to fall unchecked.

“ I believe I’ve told you all,” said Rupert. “ Only, what about that heart, Charwood? Shouldn’t it have killed him by rights? ”

“ It should; but the fact of its not having killed him gives us further evidence, in addition to that to be found in the text-books, of the uncertain operation of the disorder. But no doctor after examining him would have passed him.”

“ So he fancied; that’s why he chose a busy day at Hammersmith. Hallo, it won’t do for me to miss the one-seventeen to Victoria. Good-bye! I’m about fed up with this business. The lies—prevarications. Why, to go no further than the question of mourning when everyone fancied he had been killed—can’t you see how I was bunkered? ‘ What,’ said I, ‘ do you think that I would put a black band on my arm for a brother who has died like a hero, after saving four lives? I am not that sort of person! ’ Can’t you hear me? ”

“ I can,” said Angela. “ I can also hear Cecile when she learns that the mourning which she has been wearing for the past three months was——”

“ I mustn’t lose this train,” cried Rupert.

“ You’ll catch—something,” laughed Angela. “ And Cecile always did look so well in mourning.”

“ Good-bye, Angela; and think as kindly of me as you can consistently with my crime—the greatest crime in a woman’s eyes—secrecy. Of course, I was to blame, but—quoth the raven— God bless you, my dear girl! You are worthy of the best man in the world, and you’ll get one of the best. I often said that Mark wasn’t at all like the rest of the family.”

He was off to the next platform but one, with what haste he could accomplish without a loss of dignity. Angela and Philip stood together for a strangely long time in silence where he had left them. It was she who was the first to speak.

“ Oh, my dear Doctor Charwood, what is there left for me to say? ” she cried. “If I could tell you— haven’t you had an awful dream—climbing up a dreadful mountain peak and suddenly falling down a precipice? How relieved you feel when you awake with the start and realize that it was a dream! That is how I feel now, only the other way about: I feel that for the past half-hour I have been going through a dream of unimaginable happiness, and now I have awakened, and thank God that it is a reality. Can’t you understand how it was that Mark acted as he did all along? ”

“ Honestly, I can’t,” said Philip. “ He should have trusted you. He should have trusted you from the first.”

“ I can understand why he did not,” said she. “ Poor boy! he had no hope of ever coming back ; and he had a thought that if I knew all I might have stood between him and the realization of his aims. When can I go to him? ”

“ Send a line to him to-day, letting him know what you have told me; that will prepare him to see you to-morrow, unless I hear to the contrary from the surgeon in charge of the College Hospital. I will let you know in good time. You will motor home now, I suppose.”

She shook her head.

“ I cannot,” she said—“ I cannot bring myself to leave the place where I know he is—I must have the sense of being near him. I brought a bag with me just in case——”

“ And yet I had proved to you quite conclusively that it was impossible,” said he.

“ You owe an apology to Trooper Nicholson,” said she.aq “ He shall have it within twenty-four hours.”

He put her into her car and watched her drive off to the house where she usually stayed when in Regentsand; then he walked down to the sea-front, and later he drove to the College Hospital, and heard the surgeon’s report of the case of Sergeant Paul. There was nothing to fear, the chief of the staff assured him: a double fracture—nasty, but nothing; it was the touch of the splinter on his head that had caused a loss of blood. There was no reason why he might not see a friend for a quarter of an hour the next day.

He brought Angela to the place the following day, and left her there; and without waiting to lunch in Regentsand, he set out on his forty-mile journey to Lullington Manor Hospital. Two patients were there whose progress toward recovery had not been so satisfactory during the past few days, Mr. Walter had told him over the telephone; and he felt that he was needed.

Someone was tapping on one of the windows from within to attract his atttention as he pulled up at the porch. He looked up and saw Florence Thorburn’s little girl, Adela, smiling down on him.

He waved his hand to her.

What a shock!

He saw in a moment what had happened. The woman’s foolish sense of duty—that wretched woman’s sense of wifehood and the sacredness of motherhood had brought her to the side of her husband, in spite of all his warning, and not only so, but she had brought their child with her: it would never do for the child to miss the opportunity of making the acquaintance of her precious father !

He felt quite angry, chiefly because he had failed to see that that was just what Florence Thorburn would do when the chance was given to her.

But he walked through the hall and into his room. Mr. Walters had seen him coming, and was at hand to make his report. The two doubtful cases were, on the whole, less doubtful, Mr. Walters thought; still, he was glad that his chief had come!

“ I’m glad that I came also,” said Philip. “ I want to see the effect of your injection. There was no hint of erysipelas? ”

“ Not the least,” replied the junior. “ By the way, I don’t think that I mentioned to you on the ’phone that that cross-grained brute Thompson developed phlebitis on the very day you left. The nurse only found out by chance that he was subject to it.”

“You treated him for it all right? ”

“ Oh, yes; there should have been no trouble. The matron paid us a holiday visit and took an interest in the fellow, bringing her little girl to cheer him up when he was grumpy at not being allowed to move a limb. I thought he was all right when I saw him lying there looking into the child’s face, with one hand on her head —quite a picture! But what does the fellow do last night but jump out of his bed and kick out his legs. It took three of the staff getting him back. They sent for me, too late of course: he had no chance. He died between seven and eight. He was a cross-grained brute. The nurse says he did it on purpose. Oh, he was—”

“ He was—and more,” said Dr, Charwood.

THE END