hole. All the ugly human qualities and hard people
which the drive and pressure of a great struggle inevitably bring to the
top seemed viewed by her now as if they were the normal character of her
fellow countrymen, and she made no allowance for the fact that those
fellow countrymen had not commenced this struggle, nor for the certainty
that the same ugly qualities and hard people were just as surely to the
fore in every other of the fighting countries. The certainty she felt
about her husband's honour had made her regard his internment and
subsequent repatriation as a personal affront, as well as a wicked
injustice. Her tall thin figure and high-cheekboned face seemed to have
been scorched and withered by some inner flame; she could not have been
a wholesome companion for her boy in that house, empty even of servants.
I spent a difficult afternoon in muzzling my sense of proportion, and
journeyed back to Town sore, but very sorry.

I was off again with the Red Cross shortly after, and did not return to
England till August of 1918. I was unwell, and went down to my cottage,
now free to me again. The influenza epidemic was raging, and there I
developed a mild attack; when I was convalescent my first visitor was
Harburn, who had come down to his bungalow for a summer holiday. He had
not been in the room five minutes before he was off on his favourite
topic. My nerves must have been on edge from illness, for I cannot
express the disgust with which I listened to him on that occasion. He
seemed to me just like a dog who mumbles and chews a mouldy old bone
with a sort of fury. There was a kind of triumph about him, too, which
was unpleasant, though not surprising, for he was more of a 'force' than
ever. 'God save me from the fixed idea!' I thought, when he was gone.
That evening I asked my old housekeeper if she had seen young Mr.
Holsteig lately.

"Oh! no," she said; "he's been put away this five month. Mrs. 'Olsteig
goes up once a week to see 'im, 'Olsteig. She's nigh out of her mind,
poor lady--the baker says; that fierce she is about the Gover'ment."

I confess I could not bring myself to go and see her.

About a month after the armistice had been signed I came down to my
cottage again. Harburn was in the same train, and he gave me a lift from
the station. He was more like his old good-humoured self, and asked me
to dinner the next day. It was the first time I had met him since the
victory. We had a most excellent repa