t
as cheerfully as he would a man of colour. I made a fool of myself, as
people say, about Caston. Well--when the war came, he talked in a way
that irritated me. He talked like an East Side Annunzio, about art and
war. It made me furious to know it was all talk and that he didn't mean
business.... I made him go."

She paused for a moment. "He hated to go."

"Then I relented. Or I missed him and I wanted to be made love to. Or
I really wanted to go on my own account. I forget. I forget my motives
altogether now. That early war time was a queer time for everyone. A
kind of wildness got into the blood.... I threw over Lake. All the time
things had been going on in New York I had still been engaged to Lake.
I went to France. I did good work. I did do good work. And also things
were possible that would have seemed fantastic in America. You know
something of the war-time atmosphere. There was death everywhere and
people snatched at gratifications. Caston made 'To-morrow we die' his
text. We contrived three days in Paris together--not very cleverly. All
sorts of people know about it.... We went very far."

She stopped short. "Well?" said Sir Richmond.

"He did die...."

Another long pause. "They told me Caston had been killed. But someone
hinted--or I guessed--that there was more in it than an ordinary
casualty.

"Nobody, I think, realizes that I know. This is the first time I have
ever confessed that I do know. He was--shot. He was shot for cowardice."

"That might happen to any man," said Sir Richmond presently. "No man
is a hero all round the twenty-four hours. Perhaps he was caught by
circumstances, unprepared. He may have been taken by surprise."

"It was the most calculated, cold-blooded cowardice imaginable. He let
three other men go on and get killed..."

"No. It is no good your inventing excuses for a man you know nothing
about. It was vile, contemptible cowardice and meanness. It fitted in
with a score of ugly little things I remembered. It explained them all.
I know the evidence and the judgment against him were strictly just and
true, because they were exactly in character.... And that, you see, was
my man. That was the lover I had chosen. That was the man to whom I had
given myself with both hands."

Her soft unhurrying voice halted for a time, and then resumed in the
same even tones of careful statement. "I wasn't disgusted, not even with
myself. About him I was chiefly sorry, intensely sorry, becau