nd, Edward, there's the same blood
in us. We'll keep our ends up in our own ways. Where are you going?"

"They'll give me a chaplaincy in the East, I think."

For a wild moment Leila thought: 'Shall I offer to go with him--the two
lost dogs together?'

"What would have happened, Edward, if you had proposed to me that May
week, when we were--a little bit in love? Which would it have been,
worst for, you or me?"

"You wouldn't have taken me, Leila."

"Oh, one never knows. But you'd never have been a priest then, and you'd
never have become a saint."

"Don't use that silly word. If you knew--"

"I do; I can see that you've been half burned alive; half burned and
half buried! Well, you have your reward, whatever it is, and I mine.
Good-bye, Edward!" She took his hand. "You might give me your blessing;
I want it."

Pierson put his other hand on her shoulder and, bending forward, kissed
her forehead.

The tears rushed up in Leila's eyes. "Ah me!" she said, "it's a sad
world!" And wiping the quivering off her lips with the back of her
gloved hand, she went quickly past him to the door. She looked back from
there. He had not stirred, but his lips were moving. 'He's praying for
me!' she thought. 'How funny!'

2

The moment she was outside, she forgot him; the dreadful ache for Fort
seemed to have been whipped up within her, as if that figure of lifelong
repression had infuriated the love of life and pleasure in her. She
must and would see Jimmy again, if she had to wait and seek for him all
night! It was nearly seven, he would surely have finished at the War
Office; he might be at his Club or at his rooms. She made for the
latter.

The little street near Buckingham Gate, where no wag had chalked "Peace"
on the doors for nearly a year now, had an arid look after a hot day's
sun. The hair-dresser's shop below his rooms was still open, and the
private door ajar: 'I won't ring,' she thought; 'I'll go straight up.'
While she was mounting the two flights of stairs, she stopped twice,
breathless, from a pain in her side. She often had that pain now, as if
the longing in her heart strained it physically. On the modest landing
at the top, outside his rooms, she waited, leaning against the wall,
which was covered with a red paper. A window at the back was open and
the confused sound of singing came in--a chorus "Vive-la, vive-la,
vive-la ve. Vive la compagnie." So it came to her. 'O God!' she thought:
'Let him be in, le