hrough when
he fell, shot by a chance bullet.

An hour later his battered troops came up with the British forces. Three
or four stragglers dropped into camp as the serjeant major was making
his report.

"Ah!" said the colonel, expressively--"you got through?"

"Yes, sir, beastly hard work, too."

"Who brought you?"

"Lieutenant Weyburne, sir."

"I thought so. He's the kind of fellow for that sort of thing. Is he
in?"

"He was shot, sir."

"Shot, poor boy. What will Alleson say?"

It was Wednesday morning, and the entire strength of the Depot had
turned out on parade. The Colonel, tall and dignified in the faultless
neatness of undress uniform, was standing in his characteristic
attitude, with his hands behind him and his head thrown slightly back.
His blue eyes looked out, grave and watchful, from under the peak of his
fatigue cap, and the tense interlocking of his gloved fingers was the
only sign of his mental unrest.

Yet the vision of Miles was before him--Miles bold, earnest,
high-spirited, Miles in the full joy of life and strength, with the
light of affection in his eyes; Miles again with his boyish face white
and drawn and his active young form still in death.

He had loved the boy, his boy as he always called him, more even than he
had realised, and life seemed very blank without the hope of seeing him
again.

It was two days since his name had appeared in the lists of killed and
wounded, and that afternoon the Colonel went down to see Marjorie, who
had returned from Eastbourne a few days before. She looked unusually
pale when she came into the room, and though she ran forward eagerly
enough to greet him, her eyes were tearful and her lips quivering, as
she put her hand into his.

"I thought of writing to you"--began the Colonel nervously, "but----"

"I'm glad you came," said Marjorie, "very glad. I shouldn't mind so much
if we knew just how he died," she added sorrowfully.

"We know how he would face death, Marjorie!"

She put her arms on the table, and hid her face with a stifled sob.

"He was your boy, and you'll miss him so," she went on. "There's no one
like him, no one half so dear or half so brave. If I were only a boy I
might try to be like him and make you happy--but I can't, it's no use."

She was looking up at him with those dark eyes of hers, just as his boy
had looked at him when he said good-bye three months ago, and he could
not trust himself to speak.

"I suppose you g