ole of it, from
the first shell that hit the Town Hall to the bit of the third shell
that hit Jimmy--she said, "You mean that if he hadn't gone back for his
car--" She had broken down and was sobbing quietly, but you could see how
her mind worked.

I said, "I mean that if he hadn't gone back to the Town Hall to look for
Reggie he wouldn't have been hit."

Then I told her how they took Jimmy's hand off.

I heard the Canon groan. Millicent and Victoria began to sob as their
mother had sobbed. Mildred set her teeth firmly; and Mrs. Thesiger turned
to me a queer, disordered face, and spoke.

"They--they gave the anaesthetic to--Reggie?"

"They did," I said. "Because Jimmy made them."

Yes. I am very sorry for Mrs. Thesiger.

She cried, softly, and with a great recovery of beauty and dignity, for
about fifteen seconds (the Canon had gone back to Jevons); then she rose
and addressed her daughter.

"Mildred dear, I think Jimmy had better have Reggie's room."

Then she went to him; and I am told that she kissed him for the first
time. She kissed him as if he had been her son. (Poor Jimmy, I may say,
was so tired that he didn't want to be kissed by anybody.)

* * * * *

He still had Reggie's room six weeks later when I came back from France
for a week-end. Reggie had recovered, and was with them for a fortnight's
leave before he went out again.

Norah and I went down on Saturday to see him. (His leave was up on Sunday
night.)

Without Reggie I don't think I should have realized Jevons in his final
phase.

He had been happy, I know, at Hampstead in the first two years of his
marriage; he had been happy most of the time in Edwardes Square; even in
Mayfair he had had moments; and Amershott had been, on the whole, an
improvement on Mayfair. And he had lived through his three weeks in Ghent
in a sort of ecstasy. And before that, all the time, there had been his
work, which I am always forgetting, and his fame, when he didn't forget
it.

But there had always been something.

At first it had been the Thesigers. As long as Mrs. Thesiger--as long
as _one_ Thesiger--held out against him he had felt defeat. And then
there had been Reggie's return and his appalling doubt. He had pretended
not to see his doubt and not to mind it. And he had seen it, as he saw
everything, and he had minded awfully. Then came Viola's illness, which
you could put down to Reggie's doubt. And after that it had b