mber him to you."'

'A thoroughbred--that's wot he is,' said Mathews, apparently addressing
the distant refugees.

'"Miss Elise was heer last week and is that sweet grown that all the
woonded tommies fit with pillos to see who wud propos to her. There
ain't no news. Bertha the skullery maid marrid a hyland soldier and they
are going for to keep a sweet-shop after the war. Wellington sprayned
his ankil yesterday by clyming out of the windo where I had locked him in
as he has the mumps."'

'Wot a infant!' commented Mathews admiringly.

'"I am sending you a parsil and a picter of me and Wellington. We are
very lonesum, daddy, and I'll be reel glad when the war is over and you
come back. It is awful lonesum and Wellington is to. This morning he
cut his hand trying to carv our best chair into the shape of a horse. I
am feeling fine and hope the reumatiz don't worry you no more. With
heeps of love from me and Wellington, your wife, Maggie."'

It was a strange contrast in faces as the young man folded the letter and
handed it back. In the countenance of the groom there was a sturdy pride
in the epistolary achievement of his wife--a pride which he made a
violent but unsuccessful effort to conceal. In the pale, handsome face
of the young aristocrat there was a whimsical pathos. By the picture
conjured up in the crudely written letter he had seen his parents, his
sister, the humble cottage of the groom, and the wife's faithfulness and
cheeriness. He had seen them, not as separate things, but hallowed and
unified by a common sacrifice for England.

For the first time since his escape Dick Durwent regretted it. He could
see no safety ahead for Mathews, no matter how long they evaded arrest.
Although a cool, fretful wind was blowing over the fields, the warm noon
sun made his eyelids heavy.

Against the wish of the groom, he insisted upon spreading the greatcoat
over them both, and in a few minutes master and man were resting side by
side as comrades.

'Mathews,' said Dick quietly.

'Yezzir?'

'Give me your word that if you ever reach England you will never tell my
family about this. They don't know I am in France, and'----

'Mum as a oyster, sir--that's the ticket. Werry good, Mas'r Dick. A
oyster it is.'

Ten minutes had passed without either of them speaking, when Mathews
partially raised himself on one elbow. 'If women,' he said ruminatingly,
'was to have votes, my old girl would run for Parlyment