th regard to Wellingsford society.

If it had been any other man than Boyce, I should not have worried
about the matter at all. Save that I was deeply attached to Betty, what
had her discarded lover's attitude to do with me? But Boyce was Boyce,
the man of the damnable story of Vilboek's Farm. And he, of his own
accord, had revived in my mind that story in all its intensity. A
chance foolish question, such as thousands of gentle, sheltered women
have put to their suddenly, uncomprehended, suddenly deified sons and
husbands, had obviously disturbed his nervous equilibrium. That little
reflex twitch at the corner of his lips--I have seen it often in the
old times. I should like to have had him stripped to the waist so that
I could have seen his heart--the infallible test. At moments of mighty
moral strain men can keep steady eyes and nostrils and mouth and
speech; but they cannot control that tell-tale diaphragm of flesh over
the heart. I have known it to cause the death of many a Kaffir spy....
But, at any rate, there was the twitch of the lips ... I deliberately
threw weight into the scale of Mrs. Boyce's foolish question. If he had
not lost his balance, why should he have launched into an almost
passionate defence of the physical coward?

My memory went back to the narrative of the poor devil in the Cape Town
hospital. Boyce's description of the general phenomenon was a deadly
corroboration of Somers's account of the individual case. They had used
the same word--"paralysed." Boyce had made a fierce and definite
apologia for the very act of which Somers had accused him. He put it
down to the sudden epilepsy of fear for which a man was irresponsible.
Somers's story had never seemed so convincing--the first part of it, at
least--the part relating to the paralysis of terror. But the second
part--the account of the diabolical ingenuity by means of which Boyce
rehabilitated himself--instead of blowing his brains out like a
gentleman--still hammered at the gates of my credulity.

Well--granted the whole thing was true--why revive it after fifteen
years' dead silence, and all of a sudden, just on account of an idle
question? Even in South Africa, his "mention" had proved his courage.
Now, with the D. S. O. a mere matter of gazetting, it was established
beyond dispute.

On the other hand, if the Vilboek story, more especially the second
part, was true, what reparation could he make in the eyes of honourable
men?--in his own