es they sat there, silent, waiting for the second
telegram. Dumbleton brought it in, and lingered, anxiously expectant;
but Warde dismissed him with a gesture. As the door closed, Warde stood
up.

"If our fears are well founded," he said solemnly, "may God give you
strength, John Verney, to bear the blow."

Then he tore open the envelope and read the truth--

"_Henry Desmond killed in action._"

"No," said John, fiercely. "It is Scaife, Scaife!"

Warde shook his head, holding John's hand tight between his sinewy
fingers. John's face appalled him. He had known, he had guessed, the
strength of John's feeling for Desmond, but, he had not known the
strength of John's hatred of Scaife. And Desmond had been taken--and
Scaife left. The irony of it tore the soul.

"Don't speak," commanded Warde.

John closed his lips with instinctive obedience. When he opened them
again his face had softened; the words fell upon the silence with a
heartrending inflection of misery.

"And now I shall never know--I shall never know."

He broke down piteously. Warde let the first passion of grief spend
itself; then he asked John to explain. The good fellow saw that if John
could give his trouble words it would be lightened enormously. He
divined what had been suppressed.

"What is it that you will never know, John?"

At that John spoke, laying bare his heart. He gave details of the
never-ending struggle between Scaife and himself for the soul of his
friend; gave them with a clearness of expression which proved beyond all
else how his thoughts had crystallized in his mind. Warde listened,
holding John's hand, gripping it with sympathy and affection. The
romance of this friendship stirred him profoundly; the romance of the
struggle for good and evil; a struggle of which the issues remained
still in doubt; a romance which Death had cruelly left unfinished--this
had poignant significance for the house-master.

"I shall never know now," John repeated, in conclusion.

"But you have faith in your friend."

"He never wrote to me," said John.

At last it was out, the thorn in his side which had tormented him.

"If he had written," John continued, "if only he had written once. When
we parted it was good-bye--just that, nothing more; but I thought he
would write, and that everything would be cleared up. And now, silence."

* * * * *

The week wore itself away. A few details were forthcoming: enough to