an they all had to fight through, thousands of
officers, millions of men. Val had failed. . . . Yet how vast
the disproportion between the crime and the punishment! Endurance
is at a low ebb at nineteen when one's eyelids are dropping and one's
head nodding with fatigue. Oh to sleep--sleep for twelve hours on a
bed between clean sheets, and wake with a mind wiped clear of bloody
memories! . . . memories above all . . . incommunicable things that
even years later, even to men who have shared them, cannot be
recalled except by a half-averted glance and a low "Do you
remember--?" like frightened children holding hands in the dark of
the world. . . . Had any one of them kept sane that night--those
many nights? . . . But how should a civilian understand?

He felt Val's heart. It was beating slower and slower. If one
could only have one's life over again! but the gods themselves
cannot recall their gifts.

CHAPTER XX

It was one March evening six mouths later, one of those warm,
still, sunshot-and-grey March evenings when elm-root are blue
with violets and the air is full of the faint indeterminate scent
of tree flowers, that Lawrence brought his bride home to
Farringay. March weather is uncertain, and he preferred to go
where he could be sure of comfort, while Isabel, having once
consented to be married, left all arrangements to him. It was
eight o'clock before they reached the house, and Isabel never
forgot the impression which it made on her when she came in out
of the bloomy twilight; warm and dim and smelling of violets that
were set about in bowls on bookcase and cabinet, while the flames
of an immense wood fire on an open hearth flickered over the blue
and rose of porcelain or the oakleaf and gold of morocco. She
stood in the middle of an ocean of polished floor and looked
round her as if she had lost her way in it, till Lawrence came to
her and kissed her hands. "Isabel, do you like the look of your
new home?"

"Very much. Thank you."

"May I take off your furs for you?" Getting no answer he took
them off. Framed in the sable cap and scarf that Yvonne had
given her Isabel still parted her hair on one side, a fashion
which Lawrence had grown to admire immensely, but her young
throat and the fine straight masque of her features were thin and
she had lost much of her colour since the autumn. Lawrence held
her by the wrists and stood looking down at her, compelling her
to raise her eyes, thoug