es
open. They went in there. Oh! the deliciousness of that first sip of the
stinging, fizzling beverage! He lifted his glass in the way that she
remembered, and drank a toast.

"'Er 'ealth! If you knew how I bin wantin' to git word of 'er! She's well,
isn't she, Miss? Lumme! the Fair Old Knock-out I got when I see the
Convent standin' empty.... Gone into laager near the railway works now,
you 'ave, I know. Safe, if not stric'ly luxurious. But--I git the Regular
Hump when I think of--of a Angel like 'Er 'avin' to live an' eat an' sleep
in a--a--in a bloomin' rabbit-'ole." He sighed as he wiped the pungent
froth from his upper lip.

"Pity you can't tell 'er so!" The sarcasm would have its way, but it
failed of his great simplicity.

"That's why I bin lookin' out for you." He blushed through the brick-dust
hue as he extracted a fatigued-looking letter from a baggy left
breast-pocket in which it had sojourned in company with a tobacco-pouch, a
pipe which must not be smoked in the trenches if a man would prefer to do
without a bullet through his brain, a handful of screws not innocent of
lubricating medium, a clasp-knife, a flat tin box of carbolised vaseline,
a First-Aid bandage, and a ration of bread and cheese wrapped in old
newspaper. The bread was getting deplorable, for even the dusty seconds
flour was fast dribbling out.

"You'll give 'er this, won't you, Miss, and tell her I bin thinkin' of 'er
night and d'y? Fair live in the trenches now; and when I do git strollin'
round the stad, blimme if I ever see 'er. But she's there--an 'ere's a
ticker beatin' true to 'er." He rapped a little awkwardly upon the bulging
left breast-pocket, "To the bloomin' end, wotever it may be!"

"Oh, you--silly, you!"

She found him ridiculous and tragic, and so touching all at once that the
gibe ended in a sob. It was not the stinging effervescence of the
gingerade that made her choke and brought the smarting tears to her eyes.
It was envy of that other girl. And then she noticed, under his left eye,
a tiny scar, and she knew how he came by it, and remembered what she owed
him, and saw that the chance had come for her revenge. She could pierce
the heart beating under the khaki breast-pocket to its very core with
three words as easily as she had jabbed his face with her hat pin on that
never-to-be-forgotten night. She would tell him that the lady of his love
had gone up to Johannesburg weeks and weeks ago. Oh, but it would be sweet
t