havoc among the soft brown
curls which peeped out from under the girl's hat.

She turned to the man at her side.

"Look!" she said, and pointed seawards with her finger.

A convoy of vessels was standing out to sea framed in the
smoke-blurs of the escorting destroyers. Ugly, weatherbeaten
craft were the steamers with trails of smoke blown out in the
breeze behind them. They rode the sea's highway with confidence,
putting their trust in the unseen power that swept the road clear
for them.

"Transports, aren't they?" asked the man.

But he scarcely looked at the transports. He was watching the
gleam of the sun on the girl's brown hair and contrasting the
deep gray of her eyes with the ever-changing hues of the sea.

"Yes," replied the girl. "It's the third day they've gone across!
By this time next week there'll be ten fresh divisions in France.
How secure they look steaming along! And to think they owe it all
to you!"

The man laughed and flushed up.

"From the strictly professional standpoint the less said about me
the better," he said.

"What nonsense you talk!" cried the girl. "When the Chief was
down to see me yesterday, he spoke of nothing but you. 'They beat
him, but he won out!' he said, 'they shook him off but he went
back and found 'em!' He told me it was a case of grit versus
violence--and grit won. In all the time I've known the Chief,
I've never heard him talk so much about one man before. Do you
know," Barbara went on, looking up at Desmond, "I think you've
made the Chief feel a little bit ashamed of himself. And that I
may tell you is a most extraordinary achievement!"

"Do you think you're strong enough to hear some news?" asked
Desmond after a pause.

"Of course," replied the girl. "But I think I can guess it. It's
about Strangwise, isn't it?"

Desmond nodded.

"He was shot yesterday morning," he replied. "I'm glad they did
it in France. I was terrified lest they should want me to go to
it."

"Why?" asked the girl with a suspicion of indignation in her
voice, "he deserved no mercy."

"No," replied Desmond slowly, "he was a bad fellow--a Prussian
through and through. He murdered your poor father, he shot Rass,
he instigated the killing of the maid, Marie, he was prepared to
sacrifice his own wife even, to this Prussian God of militarism
which takes the very soul out of a man's body and puts it into
the hands of his superior officer. And yet, and yet, when one has
soldiered with a m