came
once more upon Sidney Vandyke's khaki uniform.

"This I will not take, anyhow!" I decided. "It would be of no use, and I
do believe it might carry a curse with it, because of the evil thoughts
of the man who wore it last. I wish I could burn it up!"

That I could not do; but to show spite I wreaked such childish vengeance
as I could by dashing the uniform on to the floor and proceeding to
trample on the coat with my high-heeled white satin slippers.

As I kicked it away in loathing at last, one of the slippers flew off
and seemed spitefully to follow the coat as if to deal one final insult.
It turned a somersault on the way, as defiantly as the _Golden Eagle_
had "looped the loop" over German heads at Brussels, and then plumped
down on top of the fallen garment, landing with its pointed satin nose
poked under the flap of a slightly gaping breast-pocket.

I slipped my silk-clad foot into the shoe where it lay, and pushing the
point still further into the pocket, thus lifted the coat on my toe to
give it another disgustful toss. As I did this it seemed that something
crackled with the sound--or the feel, I could hardly tell which--of
stiff paper. Then a very strange thing happened to me: suddenly I saw
before my eyes, as clearly as though it were really there, the
khaki-coloured notebook I had given Eagle--the notebook out of which he
had torn a leaf with a message written on it for Major Vandyke.

I didn't know (I don't know now, and never shall) what painted this
picture on my brain: whether it was the high, mysterious Power which had
been leading me slowly but very surely to this minute, or whether it was
nothing more than a mental association between a khaki coat worn by
Eagle's enemy on that disastrous night and a faint crackle of paper
jarring tensely on strung nerves. I know which I _like_ to think; but in
either case the effect was the same.

I saw the notebook. I saw Eagle hastily scrawling his appeal for a
written order to fire the guns. I saw Major Vandyke wearing this coat,
read the message, crumple up the paper, and then--then--the vision
faded. But the question rang in my ears: what would he be likely to do
with the paper? What should _I_ have done had I been a man in his place?
Would I have torn the message into bits and trusted to the wind to
scatter it?...

No! If I meant to swear that no such document had ever reached me, I
should have been afraid to leave bits of khaki-coloured, blue-lined