life, and the sudden, passionate hunger
for the touch of her lips shook his heart to a prompt knowledge of the
truth. He must see her again before he left, for it might be that death
would find him out there. War had seemed more of a game to begin with;
that first evening when he had shouted with the others round Trafalgar
Square he had not connected War with Death, but now it seemed as if they
walked hand in hand. He could not die without first seeing Joan again.

He thought of writing her a short note asking her to be in when he
called, but the post from Jarvis Hall did not go out till after twelve;
he could get to London quicker himself. After breakfast he told Mabel
that he found he had to go away for the day.

"Something you have forgotten--couldn't you write for it, Dick?" she
asked. "It seems such a shame, because we shall only have one more day
of you."

"No," he answered; he did not lift his eyes to look at her. "As a matter
of fact it is somebody that I must see."

He had not written about or mentioned Joan since he had gone away from
Sevenoaks last; Mabel had hoped the episode was forgotten. It came to
her suddenly that it was Joan he was speaking of, and she remembered
Fanny's long, breathless explanation and the girl's rather pathetic
belief that she would do something to help. She could not, however, say
anything to him before the others.

"Will the eleven-thirty do for you?" Tom was asking. "Because I have got
to take the car in then."

"It seems a little unreasonable, Dick," Mrs. Grant put in. She had not
been the best of friends with him since their violent scene together;
her voice took on a querulous tone when she spoke to him. "Who can there
be in London, that you suddenly find you must see?" She, too, for the
moment, was thinking of the outrageous girl.

"I am sorry," Dick answered. "It is my own fault for not having gone
before. I'll try and get back to-morrow."

Mabel caught him afterwards alone on his way out to the garden to smoke
a pipe. She slipped a hand through his arm and went with him.

"Mother is upset," she confided. "I don't think she can be awfully well;
just lately she cries very easily."

"She always used to"--Dick's voice was not very sympathetic. "Do you
remember how angry I was at the way she cried when father died?"

"Yes," Mabel nodded. "All the same, she does love you, Dick; it is a
funny sort of love, perhaps, but as she gets older it seems to me that
she gets so