ked or quarrelled all round during the waking hours of
their watch-off.

Still Nosey did not forget.

* * * * *

Then came Janie's letter from the Middlesex Hospital. Janie was in a
"decline."

The men who go down into trenches in the firing-line are, if anything,
less heroic than the army of cooks and Janies who descend to spend their
lives in the basement "domestic offices" of Bloomsbury. Dark and
ill-ventilated in summer, gas-lit and airless throughout the foggy
winter. Flight upon flight of stairs up which Janie daily toiled a
hundred times before she was suffered to seek the attic she shared with
cook under the slates. Overwork, lack of fresh air and recreation--all
these had told at last.

Nosey availed himself of week-end leave from Portsmouth to journey up to
London, and was permitted an interview with her in the big airy ward.
Neither spoke much; at no time had they been great conversationalists,
and now Janie, more diminutive and angular than ever, lost in the folds
of a flannel nightgown, was content to hold his hand as long as he was
allowed to remain.

The past was ignored, or nearly so. "You didn't orter gone off like
that," said Janie reproachfully. "But I'm glad you're a sailor. You
looks beautiful in them clothes. An' there's prospecks in the Navy."
Poor little Janie: she had "prospecks" herself at last.

He left the few flowers he had brought with the sister of the ward when
the time came to leave. The nurse followed him into the corridor. "Come
and see her every visiting day you can," she said. "It does her good and
cheers her. She often speaks of you."

Nosey returned to Portsmouth and his ship. His mess--the mess-deck
itself--was agog with rumours. Had he heard the "buzz"? Nosey had not.
"I bin to London to see a fren'," he explained.

Then they told him.

The battle-cruiser to which he belonged had been ordered to join the
Mediterranean Fleet. That was Monday; they were to sail for Malta on
Thursday.

And Janie was dying in the Middlesex Hospital.

* * * * *

The next visiting day found him at Janie's bedside. But, instead of his
spick-and-span serge suit of "Number Ones" and carefully ironed blue
collar, Nosey wore a rusty suit of "civvies" (civilian clothes). Instead
of being clean-shaven, an inconsiderable moustache was feeling its way
through his upper lip.

"Where's your sailor clothes?" asked Janie weakly