ep off it. Even if we did, you wouldn't be sorry for that,
would you?"

"No. It was the best thing we could do for him."

But at night, lying awake in her bed, she cried. For then she
remembered what he had been. On Barrow Hill, on their seat in the beech
ring, through the Sunday evenings, when feeding time and milking time
were done.

* * * * *

At four o'clock in the morning she was waked by Sutton, standing beside
her bed. The orders had come through to evacuate the hospital. Three
hours later the ambulances had joined the great retreat.

XVI

They had halted in Bruges, and there their wounded had been taken into
the Convent wards to rest.

Charlotte and Sutton were sitting out, alone together on the flagged
terrace in the closed garden. The nuns had brought out the two chairs
again, and set again the little table, covered with the white cloth.
Again the silver mist was in the garden, but thinned now to the clearness
of still water.

They had been silent after the nuns had left them. Sutton's sad,
short-sighted eyes stared out at the garden without seeing it. He was
lost in melancholy. Presently he came to himself with a long sigh--

"Charlotte, what are we going to do now? Do you know?"

"_I_ know. I'm going into Mac's corps."

"So am I. That isn't what I meant."

For a moment she didn't stop to wonder what he did mean. She was too full
of what she was going to do.

"Is that wise? I don't altogether trust old Mac. He'll use you till you
drop. He'll wear you to the last shred of your nerves."

"I want to be used till I drop. I want to be worn. Besides, I know I'm
safe with Mac."

His cold, hard indifference made her feel safe. She wasn't really safe
with Billy. His goodness might disarm her any minute, his sadness might
conceivably move her to a tender weakness. But for McClane she would
never have any personal feeling, never any fiery affection, any exalted
devotion. Neither need she be afraid of any profound betrayal. Small
betrayals perhaps, superficial disasters to her vanity, while his egoism
rode over it in triumph. He didn't want affection or anything fiery,
anything that John had had. He would leave her in her hardness; he would
never ask anything but hard, steel-cold loyalty and a willingness to
share his risks.

"What else can I do? I should have come out if John hadn't. Of course I
was glad we could go together, but you mustn't suppose I only went
because of him."