repressed his desire to sing, but he leaped about and
started to run. Then the star in which he trusted must have betrayed
him. It must have shed upon him a ray just strong enough to make him a
visible object; for, suddenly, _ping!_ something hit him violently on
the leg and bowled him over like a rabbit into a providential
shell-hole. And there he lay quaking for a long time, while the lunacy
of his adventure coarsely and unsentimentally revealed itself.

As to the rest, he was in a state of befogged memory. Only one
incident in that endless, cruel crawl home remained as a landmark in
his mind. He had paused to take breath, almost ready to give up the
impossible flight--it seemed as though he were dragging behind him a
ton of red-hot iron--when he became conscious of a stench violent in
his nostrils. He put out a hand. It encountered a horrible, once human
face, and his fingers touched a round recognizable cap. Horror drove
him away from the dead German and inspired him with the strength of
despair.... Then all was fog and dark again until he recovered
consciousness in the strange dug-out.

There the doctor had said to him: "You must have a cast-iron
constitution, my lad."

The memory caused a flicker round his lips. It wasn't everybody who
could crawl on his belly for nearly a quarter of a mile with a bullet
through his leg, and come up smiling at the end of it. A cast-iron
constitution! If he had only known it fifteen, even ten years ago,
what a different life he might have led. The great disgrace would
never have come upon him.

And Jeanne? What of Jeanne? After he had told his story, they had
given him to understand that an officer would be sent to Frelus to
corroborate it, and, if he found it true, that Jeanne would enter into
possession of her packet. And that was all he knew, for they had
bundled him out of the front trenches as quickly as possible; and once
out he had become a case, a stretcher case, and although he had been
treated, as a case, with almost superhuman tenderness, not a soul
regarded him as a human being with a personality or a history--not
even with a military history. And this same military history had
vaguely worried him all the time, and now that he could think clearly,
worried him with a very definite worry. In leaving his firing-party he
had been guilty of a crime. Every misdemeanour in the Army is termed a
crime--from murder to appearing buttonless on parade. Was it
desertion? If so,