became
aware that Gillespie had laid the envelope upon the table, and heard
him say he had found it lying in the roadway. I noticed the
handwriting: the last letter the colonel had received from his wife. It
must have been blown clean out of his jacket pocket; yet there it was,
uninjured.

The adjutant's voice, low, solemn, but resolved--he had his work to do:
"It is absolutely certain it was the colonel? There is no shadow of
doubt? I shall have to report to 'Don Ack'!"

"No shadow of doubt," replied Gillespie hopelessly, moving his head
from side to side.

Wilde came to me and asked if I would go with him to bring in the body.
I shook my head. Life out here breeds a higher understanding of the
mystic division between soul and body; one learns to contemplate the
disfigured dead with a calmness that is not callousness. But this was
different. How real a part he had played in my life these last two
years! I wanted always to be able to recall him as I had known him
alive--the slow wise smile, the crisp pleasant voice! I thought of that
last note to his little son; I thought of the quiet affection in his
voice when he spoke of keeping in touch with those who had shared the
difficulties and the hardships of the life we had undergone. I recalled
how he and I had carried a stretcher and searched for a dying officer
at Zillebeke--the day I was wounded,--and how, when I was in hospital,
he had written saying he was glad we had done our bit that day; I
thought of his happy faith in a Christmas ending of the war. The
hideous cruelty of it to be cut off at the very last, when all that he
had given his best in skill and energy to achieve was in sight!

* * * * *

The shuffling tramp outside of men carrying a blanket-covered
stretcher. They laid it tenderly on the flagstones beneath the
sun-warmed wall of the house.

Wilde, his face grave, sad, desolate, walked through the mess to his
room. I heard him rinsing his hands. A chill struck at my vitals.

* * * * *

It is finished. The colonel is dead. There is nothing more to write.

THE END.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.

* * * * *

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