a hero. He left the house in a glow,
but the drive home in the two-seater was cold and the pitch-dark night
presaged other nights of mercilessness in the future; and when Doggie
sat alone by his fire, sipping the hot milk which Peddle presented him
on a silver tray, the doubts and fears of the morning racked him
again. An ignoble possibility occurred to him. Murdoch might be wrong.
Murdoch might be prejudiced by local gossip. Would it not be better to
go up to London and obtain the opinion of a first-class man to whom he
was unknown? There was also another alternative. Flight. He might go
to America, and do nothing. To the South of France, and help in some
sort of way with hospitals for French wounded. He caught himself up
short as these thoughts passed through his mind, and he shuddered. He
took up the glass of hot milk and put it down again. Milk? He needed
something stronger. A glance in a mirror showed him his sleek hair
tousled into an upstanding wig. In a kind of horror of himself he went
to the dining-room and for the first time in his life drank a stiff
whisky and soda for the sake of the stimulant. Reaction came. He felt
a man once more. Rather suicide at once than such damnable dishonour.
According to the directions which the Dean, a man of affairs, had
given him, he sat down and wrote his application to the War Office for
a commission. Then--unique adventure!--he stole out of the barred and
bolted house, without thought of hat and overcoat (let the traducers
of alcohol mark it well), ran down the drive and posted the letter in
the box some few yards beyond his entrance gates.

The Dean had already posted his letter to his old friend General
Gadsby at the War Office.

So the die was cast. The Rubicon was crossed. The bridges were burnt.
The irrevocable step was taken. Dr. Murdoch turned up the next morning
with his prescription for physical training. And then Doggie trained
assiduously, monotonously, wearily. He grew appalled by the
senselessness of this apparently unnecessary exertion. Now and then
Peggy accompanied him on his prescribed walks; but the charm of her
company was discounted by the glaring superiority of her powers of
endurance. While he ached with fatigue, she pressed along as fresh as
Atalanta at the beginning of her race. When they parted by the Deanery
door, she would stand flushed, radiant in her youth and health, and
say:

"We've had a topping walk, old dear. Now isn't it a glorious thi