ch. And where there's
a bit o' rock, you say, 'Ere's a friend, and you get behind it like a
man. And w'en there's nothing to get behind, you get in front, and take
your chances, and you get there--right there, over the trenches, over
the bloomin' Amalakites, over the hills and far away, where they want
the relief they're goin' to get, or I'm a pansy blossom."

"Well, to-morrow can't come quick enough for me," answered the Second.
He straightened out his shoulders and eyed the hills in front of him
with a calculating air, as though he were planning the tactics of the
fight to come.

"We'll all be in it--even you, ma'am," insinuated the First to Al'mah
with a friendly nod. "But I'd ruther 'ave my job nor yours. I've done a
bit o' nursin'--there was Bob Critchett that got a splinter o' shell in
'is 'ead, and there was Sergeant Hoyle and others. But it gits me where
I squeak that kind o' thing do."

Suddenly they brought their rifles to the salute, as a footstep sounded
smartly on the stoep. It was Stafford coming from the house.

He acknowledged the salute mechanically. His eyes were fastened on the
distance. They had a rapt, shining look, and he walked like one in a
pleasant dream. A moment afterwards he mounted his horse with the
lightness of a boy, and galloped away.

He had not seen Al'mah as he passed.

In her fingers was crushed a bunch of orange blossoms. A heavy sigh
broke from her lips. She turned to go within, and, as she did so, saw
Rudyard Byng looking from the doorway towards the hospital where
Jasmine was.

"Will she come?" Al'mah asked herself, and mechanically she wiped the
stain of the blossoms from her fingers.

CHAPTER XXXVI

SPRINGS OF HEALING

Dusk had almost come, yet Jasmine had not arrived at Brinkwort's Farm,
the urgency of Al'mah's message notwithstanding. As things stood, it
was a matter of life and death; and to Al'mah's mind humanity alone
should have sent Jasmine at once to her husband's side. Something of
her old prejudice against Jasmine rose up again. Perhaps behind it all
was involuntary envy of an invitation to happiness so freely laid at
Jasmine's feet, but withheld from herself by Fate. Never had the chance
to be happy or the obvious inducement to be good ever been hers. She
herself had nothing, and Jasmine still had a chance for all to which
she had no right. Her heart beat harder at the thought of it. She was
of those who get their happiness first in making others