his intensity
had frightened her. He said nothing--did nothing to help her. She
mustered her courage to turn back with a smile. "It's long ago, isn't
it. Tabs? I've grown such a big girl now."

He brushed aside her attempt to divert him. "But you find a difference
in me?"

"A difference! You mean the difference between a man in uniform and in
mufti? Why, yes. A uniform made you look younger. It did that for most
men."

"But more for me than for most." He was pitiless towards himself now
that he had forced her to answer. "I've aged more than the five years
since you slipped your arm into mine as we marched through the darkness
to the troop-train. You never shed a tear, Terry. You kept your promise.
Often and often when I was afraid in the trenches I remembered you, a
white and gold slip of a girl with dry eyes, waving and waving. And
then, somehow, because you'd kept your promise not to cry----"

"Don't," she whispered. "Please don't. It's all ended. Everything's new
and beginning afresh."

"Beginning with you," he questioned, "where it left off?"

If she heard him, she ignored the interrogation in his voice.

III

The girl-soldier at the wheel relieved the situation. Since leaving the
station she had been running slower and slower, glancing back across her
shoulder and trying to catch their attention. Just short of the great
cross-roads at Hyde Park Corner she brought the car to a halt.

"What's the matter, Prentys?" Terry asked. "Anything wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, miss; but you've not told me where to go."

The girl spoke so reproachfully that Terry laughed. "Awfully sorry,
Prentys. It's Lord Taborley's fault. He didn't tell either of us. What
are your plans, Tabs? Where do you want to go?"

"To go?"

He caught at her question and examined it. To go--where did he want to
go? He had been so certain when he had boarded the train to London early
that morning. Ever since he had said good-by to her, nearly five years
ago, he had known quite definitely. Each time that he had had a glimpse
of her on those brief leaves from the Front, he had been more and more
sure of the desired direction. Her letters coming up to him under
shell-fire had made him even more certain--those letters compassionate
with unashamed sincerity, written with a girl's admiration for a man who
was jeopardizing his all that she might live in safety.

And now, when he was free at last to go where he chose and she herself
asked him, he