y gave little thought to the morrow.

The soldier lives in the present. His rifle, his horse, his boots, his
blanket, the commissariat, a dry bit of ground to sleep on--these are
the things which occupy his mind. His heroism is incidental, the
commonplace impulse of the moment. He does things because they are
there to do, not because some great passion, some exaltation, seizes
him. His is the real simple life. So it suddenly seemed to Stafford as
he left his tent, after he had himself inspected every man and every
horse in his battery that lived through the day of death, and made his
way towards the Stay Awhile Hospital.

"This is the true thing," he said to himself as he gazed at the wide
camp. He turned his face here and there in the starlight, and saw human
life that but now was moving in the crash of great guns, the shrieking
of men terribly wounded, the agony of mutilated horses, the bursting of
shells, the hissing scream of the pom-pom, and the discordant cries of
men fighting an impossible fight.

"There is no pretense here," he reflected. "It is life reduced down to
the bare elements. There is no room for the superficial thing. It's all
business. It's all stark human nature."

At that moment his eye caught one of those white messages of the sky
flashing the old bitter promise, "We shall reach you soon." He forgot
himself, and a great spirit welled up in him.

"Soon!" The light in the sky shot its message over the hills.

That was it--the present, not the past. Here was work, the one thing
left to do.

"And it has to be done," he said aloud, as he walked on swiftly, a
spring to his footstep. Presently he mounted and rode away across the
veld. Buried in his thoughts, he was only subconsciously aware of what
he saw until, after near an hour's riding, he pulled rein at the door
of the Stay Awhile Hospital, which was some miles in the rear of the
main force.

As he entered, a woman in a nurse's garb passed him swiftly. He
scarcely looked at her; he was only conscious that she was in great
haste. Her eyes seemed looking at some inner, hidden thing, and, though
they glanced at him, appeared not to see him or to realize more than
that some one was passing. But suddenly, to both, after they had
passed, there came an arrest of attention. There was a consciousness,
which had nothing to do with the sight of the eyes, that a familiar
presence had gone by. Each turned quickly, and their eyes came back
from regarding