ase from her own problem, her own arid loneliness. Her mind went
back to the night when she had first sung "Manassa" at Covent Garden.
The music shimmered in her brain. She essayed to hum some phrases of
the opera which she had always loved, but her voice had no resonance or
vibration. It trailed away into a whisper.

"I can't sing any more. What shall I do when the war ends? Or is it
that I am to end here with the war?" she whispered to herself.... Again
reverie deepened. Her mind delivered itself up to an obsession. "No, I
am not sorry I killed him," she said firmly after a long time, "If a
price must be paid, I will pay it."

Buried in her thoughts, she was scarcely conscious of voices near by.
At last they became insistent to her ears, They were the voices of
sentries off duty--the two who had talked to her earlier in the
evening, after Ian Stafford had left.

"This ain't half bad, this night ain't," said one. "There's a lot o'
space in a night out here."

"I'd like to be 'longside o' some one I know out by 'Ampstead 'Eath,"
rejoined the other.

"I got a girl in Camden Town," said the First victoriously.

"I got kids--somewheres, I expect," rejoined the Second with a flourish
of pride and self-assertion.

"Oh, a donah's enough for me!" returned the First.

"You'll come to the other when you don't look for it neither," declared
his friend in a voice of fatality.

"You ain't the only fool in the world, mate, of course. But 'struth, I
like this business better. You've got a good taste in your mouth in the
morning 'ere."

"Well, I'll meet you on 'Ampstead 'Eath when the war is over, son,"
challenged the Second.

"I ain't 'opin' and I ain't prophesyin' none this heat," was the quiet
reply. "We've got a bit o' hell in front of us yet. I'll talk to you
when we're in Lordkop."

"I'll talk to your girl in Camden Town, if you 'appen to don't," was
the railing reply.

"She couldn't stand it not but the once," was the retort; and then they
struck each other with their fists in rough play, and laughed, and said
good-night in the vernacular.

CHAPTER XXXVII

UNDER THE GUN

They had left him for dead in a dreadful circle of mangled gunners who
had fallen back to cover in a donga, from a fire so stark that it
seemed the hillside itself was discharging myriad bolts of death, as a
waterwheel throws off its spray. No enemy had been visible, but far
away in front--that front which must be taken--there hung