ever have made him love me.'

"Are you--are you leaving him?"

Leila nodded:

"That's very brave, and wonderful."

"Oh! no. Needs must when the devil drives--that's all. I don't give up
happiness of my own accord. That's not within a hundred miles of the
truth. What I shall become, I don't know, but nothing better, you may be
sure. I give up because I can't keep, and you know why. Where is Noel?"

"Down at the sea, with George and Gratian."

He was looking at her in wonder; and the pained, puzzled expression on
his face angered her.

"I see the house is to let. Who'd have thought a child like that could
root up two fossils like us? Never mind, Edward, there's the same blood
in us. We'll keep our ends up in our own ways. Where are you going?"

"They'll give me a chaplaincy in the East, I think."

For a wild moment Leila thought: 'Shall I offer to go with him--the two
lost dogs together?'

"What would have happened, Edward, if you had proposed to me that May
week, when we were--a little bit in love? Which would it have been,
worst for, you or me?"

"You wouldn't have taken me, Leila."

"Oh, one never knows. But you'd never have been a priest then, and you'd
never have become a saint."

"Don't use that silly word. If you knew--"

"I do; I can see that you've been half burned alive; half burned and half
buried! Well, you have your reward, whatever it is, and I mine.
Good-bye, Edward!" She took his hand. "You might give me your blessing;
I want it."

Pierson put his other hand on her shoulder and, bending forward, kissed
her forehead.

The tears rushed up in Leila's eyes. "Ah me!" she said, "it's a sad
world!" And wiping the quivering off her lips with the back of her
gloved hand, she went quickly past him to the door. She looked back from
there. He had not stirred, but his lips were moving. 'He's praying for
me!' she thought. 'How funny!'

2

The moment she was outside, she forgot him; the dreadful ache for Fort
seemed to have been whipped up within her, as if that figure of lifelong
repression had infuriated the love of life and pleasure in her. She must
and would see Jimmy again, if she had to wait and seek for him all night!
It was nearly seven, he would surely have finished at the War Office; he
might be at his Club or at his rooms. She made for the latter.

The little street near Buckingham Gate, where no wag had chalked "Peace"
on the doors for nearly a year now, had an