anks very much."

Their hosts helped the departing ones into their great-coats. "Not 't
all," they murmured politely in return. "Sorry to break up a cheery
evening. Let's hope they've really come out this time!"

The Indiarubber Man slid on to the music-stool again, put his foot on
the soft pedal, lightly touched the familiar chords, and began humming
under his breath:

"We don't want to lose you----
But we _think_ you ought to go . . ."

There are many ways of saying _Moriturus te saluto_.

X

THE HIGHER CLAIM

1

All night long the wind, blowing in across the dunes from the North
Sea, had brought the sound of firing.

At times it was hardly perceptible: a faint reverberation of the ether
that could scarcely be defined as sound; it would resolve itself into a
low, continuous rumble, very much like distant thunder, that died away
and recommenced nearer and more distinct. Then the sashes of the open
window trembled, and Margaret, who had lain awake all night, every
nerve strained to listen, leaned on one elbow to stare from her bed out
into the darkness.

She had tried not to listen. For hours she had lain without moving,
with limbs tense beneath the coverings, the palms of her hands pressed
against her ears. But imagination sped through the dark passages of
her mind, brandishing a torch, compelling her at length to listen again.

She had no very clear idea, of course, what a naval action was like. A
confused recollection of pictures seen in childhood only suggested
stalwart men, stripped to the waist and bare-footed, working round the
smoking guns of ships whose decks blazed up in flame to taunt the quiet
heavens; while the ships' scuppers ran red.

Modern naval warfare could be nothing like that, though.

She had only seen the results of modern warfare. Men tortured till
they came near to forgetting their manhood; burnt, deaf, scalded, torn
by splinters, blinded; she had seen them smiling under circumstances
that thrilled her to feel they shared a common Flag.

On the outbreak of war the training institute on the East Coast, of
which Margaret was the matron, had, on account of its position near the
coast and other advantages, been converted into a Naval Hospital. Miss
Dacre, the principal, Margaret, and a few others who had already
qualified in nursing, were retained as Red Cross sisters, and it was
not long before the classrooms and dormitories were occupied by very
different inma