?"

"Yes. I wanted to give him his chance. And," he added meditatively, "I
wanted to know whether I was right. I wanted to see what he would do."

"I don't think it now," she said, reverting.

"_That's_ all right."

He laughed his brief, mirthless laugh, the assent of his egoism. But his
satisfaction had nothing personal in it. He was pleased because justice,
abstract justice, had been done. But she suspected his sincerity. He did
things for you, not because he liked you, but for some other reason; and
he would be so carried away by doing them that he would behave as though
he liked you when he didn't, when all the time you couldn't for one
minute rouse him from his immense indifference. She knew he liked her for
sticking to her post and for taking the wounded man on her back, because
that was the sort of thing he would have done himself. And he had only
helped John because he wanted to see what he would do. Therefore she
suspected his sincerity.

But, no; he wasn't jealous.

"And now," he went on, "you must get him to go home at once, or he'll
have a bad break-down. You've got to tell him, Charlotte."

She stood up, ready. "Where is he?"

"By himself. In his room."

She went to him there.

He was sitting at his little table. He had been trying to write a letter,
but he had pushed it from him and left it. You could see he was absorbed
in some bitter meditation. She seated herself at the head of his bed, on
his pillow, where she could look down at him.

"John," she said, "you can't go on like this--"

"Like what?"

He held his head high; but the excited, happy light had gone out of his
eyes; they stared, not as though they saw anything, but withdrawn, as
though he were contemplating the fearful memory of his fear.

And she was sorry for him, so sorry that she couldn't bear it. She bit
her lip lest she should sob out with pain.

"Oh--" she said, and her pain stopped her.

"I don't know what you're talking about--'going on like this.'
I'm--going--on."

"What's the good? You've had enough. If I were you I should go home. You
know you can't stand it."

"What? Go and leave my cars to Sutton?"

"McClane could take them."

"I don't know how long McClane signed on for. _I_ signed on for the
duration of the war."

"There wasn't any signing on."

"Well, if you like, I swore I wouldn't go back till it was over."

"Yes, and supposing it happens again."

"What _should_ happen again?"

"What happened