capture of
two regiments. The School Cadet Corps could not accept the mass of
recruits that demanded to be enrolled. Drums were bought by
subscription, and in the armoury down under the School tattoo and
rataplan voiced the martial spirit of St. James'.

One day Alan brought back the news that his Uncle Kenneth was ordered to
the front, that he would sail from Southampton in a few days. Leave was
granted Alan to go and say good-bye, and in the patriotic fervour that
now burned even in the hearts of schoolmasters, Michael was accorded
leave to accompany him.

They travelled down to Southampton on a wet, windy November day, proud
to think as they sat opposite one another in the gloomy railway-carriage
that in some way since this summons they were both more intimately
connected with the war.

In a dreary Southampton hotel they met Mrs. Ross, and Michael thought
that she was very beautiful and very brave waiting in the chilly
fly-blown dining-room of the hotel. Three years of marriage scarcely
seemed to have altered his dear Miss Carthew; yet there was a dignity, a
carven stillness that Michael had never associated with the figure of
his governess, or perhaps it was that now he was older, more capable of
appreciating the noble lines of this woman.

It gave Michael a sentimental pang to watch Mrs. Ross presiding over
their lunch as she had in the past presided over so many lunches. They
spoke hardly at all of Captain Ross's departure, but they talked of
Nancy, and how well she was doing as secretary to Lord Perham, of Mrs.
Carthew, still among the roses and plums of Cobble Place, and of a
hundred jolly bygone events. Mrs. Ross was greatly interested to hear of
Stella, and greatly amused by Michael's arrangement of her future.

Then Captain Ross came in, and after a few jokes, which fell very flat
in the bleak dining-room--perhaps because the two boys were in awe of
this soldier going away to the wars, or perhaps because they knew that
there was indeed nothing to joke about--said:

"The regiment comes in by the 2.45. We shall embark at once. What's the
time now?"

Everyone, even the mournful waiter, stared up at the wall. It was two
o'clock.

"Half an hour before I need go down to the station," said Captain Ross,
and then he began to whistle very quietly. The wind was getting more
boisterous, and the rain rattled on the windows as if, without, a
menacing hand flung gravel for a signal.

"Can you two boys amuse you