g in her little act of helpfulness. It had been
performed with the unsmiling perfunctoriness of the nurse; an act of
duty, not of tenderness. As she blew out the match, which she did with
an odd air of deliberation, her face wore the same expression of
hardness it had done on that memorable day when she had refused him
her sympathy over the white feather incident.

"I can't understand your wanting to go back at all. Surely you've done
your bit," she said.

"No one has done his bit who's alive and able to carry on," replied
Doggie.

Peggy reflected. Yes. There was some truth in that. But she thought it
rather hard lines on the wounded to be sent back as soon as they were
patched up. Most of them hated the prospect. That was why she couldn't
understand Doggie's desire.

"Anyhow, it's jolly noble of you, dear old thing," she declared with
rather a spasmodic change of manner, "and I'm very proud of you."

"For God's sake, don't go imagining me a hero," cried Doggie in alarm,
"for I'm not. I hate the fighting like poison. The only reason I don't
run away is because I can't. It would be far more dangerous than
standing still. It would mean an officer's bullet through my head at
once."

"Any man who is wounded in the defence of his country is a hero," said
Peggy defiantly.

"Rot!" said Doggie.

"And all this time you haven't told me how you got it. How did you?"

Doggie squirmed. The inevitable and dreaded question had come at last.

"I just got sniped when I was out, at night, with a wiring party," he
said hurriedly.

"But that's no description at all," she objected.

"I'm afraid it's all I can give," Doggie replied. Then, by way of
salve to a sensitive conscience, he added: "There was nothing brave or
heroic about it, at all--just a silly accident. It was as safe as
tying up hollyhocks in a garden. Only an idiot Boche let off his gun
on spec and got me. Don't let us talk about it."

But Peggy was insistent. "I'm not such a fool as not to know what
mending barbed wire at night means. And whatever you may say, you got
wounded in the service of your country."

It was on Doggie's agitated lips to shout a true "I didn't!" For that
was the devil of it. Had he been so wounded, he could have purred
contentedly while accepting the genuine hero's meed of homage and
consolation. But he had left his country's service to enter that of
Jeanne. In her service he had been shot through the leg. He had no
business to be wou