the indignant eye of Sergeant
Marigold and faded away down the High Street.

All this in itself seemed very trivial, but for the past year the
attitude of Gedge had been mysterious. Could it be possible that Gedge
thought himself the sole repository of the secret which Boyce had so
desperately confided to me? But when had the life of Gedge and the
military life of Leonard Boyce crossed? It was puzzling.

Well, to tell the truth, I thought no more about the matter. The glow
of Mrs. Boyce's happiness remained with me all the evening. Rarely had
I seen her so animated, so forgetful of her own ailments. She had taken
the rosiest view of Leonard's physical condition and sunned herself in
the honour conferred on him by the King. I had never spent a pleasanter
afternoon at her house. We had comfortably criticised our neighbours,
and, laudatores temporis acti, had extolled the days of our youth. I
went to bed as well pleased with life as a man can be in this
convulsion of the world.

The next morning she sent me a letter to read. It was written at
Boyce's dictation. It ran:

"Dear Mother:

"I'm sorry to say I am knocked out pro tem. I was fooling about where a
C.O. didn't ought to, and a Bosch bullet got me so that I can't write.
But don't worry at all about me. I'm too tough for anything the Bosches
can do. To show how little serious it is, they tell me that I'll be
conveyed to England in a day or two. So get hot-water bottles and bath
salts ready.

"Your ever loving Leonard."

This was good news. Over the telephone wire we agreed that the letter
was a justification of our yesterday's little merrymaking. Obviously, I
told her, he would live to fight another day. She was of opinion that
he had done enough fighting already. If he went on much longer, the
poor boy would get quite tired out, to say nothing of the danger of
being wounded again. The King ought to let him rest on his laurels and
make others who hadn't worked a quarter as hard do the remainder of the
war.

"Perhaps," I said light-heartedly, "Leonard will drop the hint when he
writes to thank the King for the nice cross."

She said that I was laughing at her, and rang off in the best of
spirits.

In the evening came Betty, inviting herself to dinner. She had been on
night duty at the hospital, and I had not seen her for some days. The
sight of her, bright-eyed and brave, fresh and young, always filled me
with happiness. I felt her presence like wine and