te sorry for him, as one is for a poor dog that
goes mad, does what harm he can, and dies. I lay awake that night a long
time thinking of him, and of that unhappy, half-crazed mother, whose son
lay between life and death.

Next day I went to see her, but she was up in London, hovering round
the cage of her son, no doubt. I heard from her, however, some days
later, thanking me for coming, and saying he was out of danger. But she
made no allusion to that evening visit. Perhaps she was ashamed of it.
Perhaps she was demented when she came, and had no remembrance thereof.

Soon after this I went to Belgium to illustrate a book on
Reconstruction, and found such subjects that I was not back in Town till
the late summer of 1919. Going into my Club one day I came on Harburn in
the smoking-room. The curse had not done him much harm, it seemed, for
he looked the picture of health.

"Well, how are you?" I said. "You look at the top of your form."

"Never better," he replied.

"Do you remember our last evening together?"

He uttered a sort of gusty grunt, and did not answer.

"That boy recovered," I said. "What's happened to him and his mother,
since?"

"The ironical young brute! I've just had this from him." And he handed
me a letter with the Hanover post mark.

"Dear Mr. Harburn,

It was only on meeting my mother here yesterday that I
learned of her visit to you one evening last December. I
wish to apologise for it, since it was my illness which
caused her to so forget herself. I owe you a deep debt of
gratitude for having been at least part means of giving me
the most wonderful experience of my life. In that camp of
sorrow--where there was sickness of mind and body such as I
am sure you have never seen or realised, such endless
hopeless mental anguish of poor huddled creatures turning and
turning on themselves year after year--I learned to forget
myself, and to do my little best for them. And I learned, and
I hope I shall never forget it, that feeling for one's fellow
creatures is all that stands between man and death; I was
going fast the other way before I was sent there. I thank you
from my heart, and beg to remain,

Very faithfully yours
HAROLD HOLSTEIG."

I put it down, and said:

"That's not ironical. He means it."

"Bosh!" said Harburn, with the old spark and smoulder in his eyes. "He's
pulling my leg--the s