disordered. It worked fitfully, and its processes
were broken with blanks and breaks. Chaos marked his mental steps from
this point; his feet were caught and he fell down and down, yet tried
hard for a while to stay his fall. His consciousness began to decide,
while his natural instincts struggled against the decision. Not one, but
rival spirits tore him. Reason formed no part in the encounter; no
arbiter arose between the conflicting forces, between a gathering will
to die and escape further torment, and the brute will to live, that must
belong to every young creature, happy or wretched.

The trial was long drawn out; but it had ended some hours before Estelle
stood beside him.

She considered whether she should waken Abel and determined that she
must do so, since to speak with him, if possible, she held her duty now.
He was safe if he wished to be, for she would never tell his secret. So
she bent down with her light--to find him dead. He had shot himself
through the right temple after sunset time of the second day.

Estelle stood and looked at him for a little while, then climbed back to
earth and went away through the darkness to tell his mother that she was
right.

THE END

The Human Boy and the War

BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS

In this book of stories Mr. Phillpotts uses his genial gift of
characterization to picture the effect of the European War on the
impressionable minds of boys--English school-boys far away from anything
but the mysterious echo of the strange terrors and blood-stirring
heroisms of battle, who live close only to the martial invitation of a
recruiting station. There are stories of a boy who runs away to go to
the front, teachers who go--perhaps without running; the school's
contest for a prize poem about the war, and snow battles, fiercely
belligerent, mimicking the strategies of Flanders and the Champagne.
They are deeply moving sketches revealing the heart and mind of English
youth in war-time.

"The book is extraordinary in the skill with which it gets into that
world of the boy so shut away from the adult world. It is entirely
unlike anything else by Phillpotts, equal as it is to his other volumes
in charm, character study, humor and interest. It is one of those books
that every reader will want to recommend to his friends, and which he
will only lend with the express proviso that it must be returned."--_New
York Times_.

"In this book Mr. Phillpotts pictures a boy, a real human