my seemed hurt. To make it clear that he
had a vital reason, Thompson explained tersely.

"I can't do it because I'm going to the front."

"Eh? What the devil!"

Tommy looked all the astonishment his tone expressed.

"Well, _what_ the devil?" Thompson returned tartly. "Is there anything
strange about that? A good many men have gone. A good many more will
have to go before this thing is settled. Why not?"

"Oh, if a man feels that he _should_," Tommy began. He seemed at a loss
for words, and ended lamely: "There's plenty of cannon-fodder in the
country without men of your caliber wasting themselves in the trenches.
You haven't the military training nor the pull to get a commission."

Thompson's lips opened to retort with a sentence he knew would sting
like a whiplash. But he thought better of it. He would not try plucking
the mote out of another man's eye, when he had so recently got clear of
the beam in his own.

Tommy did not tarry long after that. He wished Thompson good luck, but
he left behind him the impression that he privately considered it a poor
move. Thompson was willing to concede that from a purely material
standpoint it was a poor move. But he could no longer adopt the purely
materialistic view. It had suddenly become clear to him that he must
go--and _why_ he must go. Just as the citizen whose house gets on fire
knows beyond peradventure that he must quench the flames if it lies in
his power.

The Royal Flying Corps arrives at its ends slowly. Perhaps not too
slowly for the niceness of choice that must be made. Presently there
came to Wesley Thompson a brief order to report at a training camp in
Eastern Canada.

When he held this paper in his hand and knew himself committed
irrevocably to the greatest game of all, he felt a queer, inner glow, a
quiet satisfaction such as must come to a man who succeeds in some high
enterprise. Thompson felt this in spite of desperate facts. He had no
illusions as to what he had set about. He knew very well that in the
R.F.C. it was a short life and not always a merry one. Of course a man
might be lucky. He might survive by superior skill. In any case it had
to be done.

But he was moved likewise by a strange loneliness, and with his orders
in his hand he understood at last the source of that peculiar regret
which latterly had assailed him in stray moments. There were a few
friends to bid good-by. And chief, if she came last on his round of
calls that last day,