feel. I wish Stella had known Captain Ross. She would have been
able to express her feelings._

_With all my love,_

_Your affectionate_

_Michael._

In bed that night Michael thought what a beast he had made of himself
that day, and flung the blankets feverishly away from his burnt-out
self. Figures of well-loved people kept trooping through the darkness,
and he longed to converse with them, inspired by the limitless
eloquence of the night-time. All that he would say to Mr. Viner, to Mrs.
Ross, to Alan, even to good old Chator, splashed the dark with fiery
sentences. He longed to be with Stella in a cool woodland. He almost got
up to go down and pour his soul out upon his mother's breast; but the
fever of fatigue mocked his impulse and he fell tossing into sleep.

Chapter XII: _Alan_

Michael left the house early next day that he might make sure of seeing
Alan for a moment before Prayers. A snowy aggregation of cumulus
sustained the empyrean upon the volume of its mighty curve and swell.
The road before him stretched shining in a radiant drench of azure
puddles. It was a full-bosomed morning of immense peace.

Michael rather dreaded to see Alan appear in oppressive black, and felt
that anything like a costume would embarrass their meeting. But just
before the second bell he came quickly up the steps dressed in his
ordinary clothes, and Michael in the surging corridor gripped his arm
for a moment, saying he would wait for him in the 'quarter.'

"Is your mater fearfully cut up?" he asked when they had met and were
strolling together along the 'gravel.'

"I think she was," said Alan. "She's going up to Cobble Place this
morning to see Aunt Maud."

"I wrote to her last night," said Michael.

"I spent nearly all yesterday in writing to her," said Alan. "I couldn't
think of anything to say. Could you?"

"No, I couldn't think of very much," Michael agreed. "It seemed so
unnecessary."

"I know," Alan said. "I'd really rather have come to school."

"I wish you had. I made an awful fool of myself in the morning. I got in
a wax with Abercrombie and the chaps, and said I'd never play football
again."

"Whatever for?"

"Oh, because I didn't think they appreciated what it meant for a chap
like your Uncle Kenneth to be killed."

"Do you mean they said something rotten?" asked Alan, flushing.

"I don't think you would have thought it rotten. In fact, I think the
whole row was my fau