ghting began he was attached to the Staff
and I was left behind. So I turned to the hospital and I have been at
work here for a year and more.'

He forgot his wound, and stood upright with the crutch stick in one hand
and held out both arms to her.

'I haven't the least little bit of a right, my dear,' he said, but she
laughed tenderly, and ran to the offered shelter. All around were the
unlettered, turbaned memorials of the dead, and there was just this
one bit of youth and love in the middle of that record of a thousand
tragedies.

'Have you heard the news?' she asked, looking up at the worn young face
with its late sprung growth of silky beard.

'What news?' he asked.

'The news about yourself,' she answered.

'News about myself?' said Polson. 'What news is there about me?'

'You don't know?' cried Irene, recoiling from him a little with clasped
hands and sparkling eyes. 'Is it going to be my good luck to tell you?
You don't know any news about yourself?'

'I don't know any news about myself,' he answered; 'since I was bowled
over on Christmas morning at Sevastopol, I haven't had a chance of
hearing any, I've had your voice and this dear little hand about me all
the time--I've known that.'

'And you don't know?' she asked him, 'you don't know what's waiting for
you when you get back to England?'

A cloud fell upon him at the question. 'I don't know, dear,' he
answered. 'I don't know what's waiting for me when I get back to
England. But I do know that I'm a bit of a fool and a bit of a scoundrel
to forget the reason why we said good-bye. I was so glad to see you
again that it came natural to forget. And you'll forgive me sooner than
I shall forgive myself.'

'Wait one minute, Polson,' said Irene. 'Here is a letter from papa. So
soon as you can recover you are to be invalided home, and the gem of
the letter is--do you guess? Do you guess? You are recommended by the
Commander-in-Chief for the Victoria Cross. Here it is.' And she read,
dancing on tiptoe. '"Our young friend, Polson, has magnificently
distinguished himself, having rescued under heavy fire a wounded
officer, whose name I have not yet been able to discover. But the
gallant action was seen by the Chief, who was there in person, and who
has told me that he has seen nothing more splendid in the whole course
of his career."'

With that, she hid her face upon his breast again, and he folded his
arms about her in a sort of stupor.

'I said good-b