had gone from that
county. One letter struck him forcibly: it was headed "Back to Hell."
"Dear mother," the soldier wrote, "I am alive and well, but I have had
a terrible time. Four days and nights I have been fighting without
ever having time to change my clothes. Never once during that time did
I take off my shoes. It was simply fight, fight, all the time. Our
chaps were just worn out, and so were ordered away to rest for a day or
two. That is why I am here and have time to write to you. To-morrow I
am going back to Hell; but I am going willingly, because I know I am
wanted there."

The tears started to Bob's eyes as he read. There was a touch of
heroism, and more than heroism, in the simple lad's letter: "I am going
back to Hell, and I am going willingly, because I know I am wanted
there."

"Yes," thought Bob; "that just hits off the situation."

At that moment a laugh rang out which caused him to start violently and
his pulses to quicken; there was not another voice in the world like
that; it was a laugh he had heard a hundred times. He remembered it as
it sounded above the singing of the waves down by the Cornish sea; he
remembered it on the tennis courts at Penwennack, and on the golf links
at Leiant. In another second the laugh was lost in a hoarse, excited
cry. The eyes of the two met, but neither spoke a word.

"I--I--this is a surprise," stammered Bob presently.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

It was not a bit what either of them wanted to say, but it didn't
matter; words at that moment meant very little.

"I never heard you were here," he went on, after a few seconds. "I've
been in the hospital such a long time, too, but no one ever told me."

He tried to speak naturally, but the girl heard the tremor in his
voice. "It is because he is so weak," she thought. "How pale he
looks!"

"Were you wounded badly?" she asked.

"I got out of it jolly easily, I suppose," he replied; "and I was lucky
too--all the bones were set before I recovered consciousness."

"He doesn't tell me he is glad to see me," she reflected. "Of course,
he hates me now. How can it be otherwise? When we last met, I was
just cruel to him, and I hurt him all I was able."

"I am so glad you are better," she said aloud.

"It's awfully good of you. Won't you sit down?"

They might have been mere acquaintances from the way they spoke, but
each felt that the moment was tragic.

"The doctor tells me that in a week, or a