did--that?" she quavered, marvelling at the greatness of his nature.

"Look in me jacket pocket if you think I'm spinnin' you fairy ones." His
close arm slackened a little. "Now there's somethin' I got to up an' tell,
if you never tips me the 'Ow Do no more."

"Wot is it, deer?" Her heart beat painfully. Was this something the reason
why he had not yet kissed her?

"It's got to do with the Dutchy wot landed me this slip over the
cokernut"--he indicated some plaster strappings that decorated the seat of
intelligence--"with a revolver-butt, when they rushed the Fort. After 'e'd
plugged at me wiv' 'is last cartridge an' missed." The Adam's apple in his
thin throat worked up above the collar of the grey flannel Hospital
jacket. "I--I outed 'im!" said W. Keyse.

"O' course you did, deer." Her heart thrilled with pride in her hero. "An'
serve 'im glad--the narsty, blood-thirsty, murderin'----"

He interrupted:

"'Old 'ard! Wait till you knows 'oo it was." He gulped, and the Adam's
apple jerked in the old way. "That 'ulkin' big Dopper you was walkin' out
along of, when I----"

"Walt! It was--Walt?"

She shuddered and grew pale.

"That's the bloke I means. I 'ad to 'ave 'im," explained W. Keyse, "or
'e'd 'ave 'ad me. So I sent 'im in. With my one, two, an' the Haymaker's
Lift. Right in the middle of 'is dirty weskit. F'ff!" He blew a sigh. "Now
it's out, an' I suppose you 'ates me?"

She panted.

"It's 'orrible, deer, but--but--you 'ad to. An'--an'--if I 'ave to s'y it,
I'd a bloomin' sight rather it was 'Im than You!"

"I'll 'ave my kiss now," said the lordly W. Keyse. And took it from her
willing lips.

LV

There was no perceptible change in Lynette, either at the time of young
Eybel's frustrated coup, or for long after. She was to live as much as
possible in the open air, Saxham had insisted, and so you would find the
girl, with a Sister in charge of her, sitting in the Cemetery, where the
crop of little white crosses thickened every day. The little blue and
white irises had bloomed upon those two graves where her adopted mother
and her brave young lover lay, before the dawning of that day the nuns
prayed and Saxham hoped for.

It was his bitter-sweet joy to be with her constantly, striving with all
his splendid powers of brain and body to brace the shattered nerves, and
restore the exhausted strength, and lead the darkened mind back gently and
by degrees towards the light.

She did not shrink f