ver tasted. What the deuce
you've done to it I don't know."

XX

THE HAND OF SHADOW

"Come in," said Margery Debenham, as she opened her eyes lazily to the
sunlight. "Put my tea on the table, please, Mary. I'm too sleepy to
drink it yet.

"There's a letter from the front, miss," said Mary with emphasis, as she
went out of the room.

Margery was awake in a second. She jumped out of bed, slipped on a
dressing-gown, and, letter in hand, ran over to the window to read it in
the morning sunshine. As she tore open the envelope and found only a
small sheet of paper inside, she made a little _moue_ of disappointment,
but the first words of the letter changed it into a sigh of joy. It was
dated September 13th and ran:

"MY DARLING,

"At last I have got my leave, and am coming home to be married. Our
months of waiting are over. I leave here to-morrow afternoon, shall
spend the night on the way somewhere, and shall arrive in London late
on the 15th, or during the morning of the 16th. I must spend the day in
town to do a little shopping (I couldn't be seen at my own wedding very
well in the clothes I have on now) and expect to get down to Silton at
3.20 on the 17th. I have to be back in this hole on the 24th, so that if
we get married on Saturday we shall have quite a nice little honeymoon.
Darling little one! Isn't it too good to be true? I can hardly realise
that within a week I shall be

"Your devoted and hen-pecked husband

RONALD."

"P.S.--I have written to father, and he will make all arrangements for
Saturday.

"P.P.S.--Shall I be allowed to smoke in the drawing-room?"

* * * * *

Margery Debenham leant out of the window and gazed at the garden and the
orchard beyond. The light flickered through the trees of the old flagged
path along which she and Ronald had so often wandered, and she could
just see the tall grass waving down at the bottom of the orchard, where
they used to sit and discuss the future. Everything reminded her of her
lover who was coming back to her, who would be with her again to-morrow
afternoon. At the thought of the five long, weary months of waiting that
were passed, and of the eight days of happiness that were coming, two
little tears crept out of her eyes and down her cheeks. She brushed them
impatiently away, for she was too busy to cry. She must run and tell her
parents; she must hurry over to talk to Ronald's father; she must write
to her fri