Cameron possibly know that that envelope addressed in Ruth
Macdonald's precious handwriting contained nothing but the briefest word
of thanks for an elaborate souvenir that Wainwright had sent her from
France?

"What's the matter with Cammie?" his comrades asked one another when he
came back to his company. "He looks as though he had lost his last
friend. Did he care so much for that Wainwright guy that he saved? I'm
sure I don't see what he sees in him. I wouldn't have taken the trouble
to go out after him, would you?"

Cameron's influence had been felt quietly among his company. In his
presence the men refrained from certain styles of conversation, when he
sat apart and read his Testament they hushed their boisterous talk, and
lately some had come to read with him. He was generally conceded to be
the bravest man in their company, and when a fellow had to die suddenly
he liked Cameron to hold him in his arms.

So far Cameron had not had a scratch, and the men had come to think he
had a charmed life. More than he knew he was beloved of them all. More
than they knew their respect for him was deepening into a kind of awe.
They felt he had a power with him that they understood not. He was still
the silent corporal. He talked not at all of his new-found experience,
yet it shone in his face in a mysterious light. Even after he came from
Wainwright with that stricken look, there was above it all a glory behind
his eyes that not even that could change. For three days he went into the
thick of the battle, moving from one hairbreadth escape to another with
the calmness of an angel who knows his life is not of earth, and on the
fourth day there came the awful battle, the struggle for a position that
had been held by the enemy for four years, and that had been declared
impregnable from the side of the Allies.

The boys all fought bravely and many fell, but foremost of them all
passing unscathed from height to height, Corporal Cameron on the lead in
fearlessness and spirit; and when the tide at last was turned and they
stood triumphant among the dead, and saw the enemy retiring in disorder,
it was Cameron who was still in the forefront, his white face and
tattered uniform catching the last rays of the setting sun.

Later when the survivors had all come together one came to the captain
with a white face and anxious eyes:

"Captain, where's Cammie? We can't find him anywhere."

"He came a half hour ago and volunteered to slip