am he had been
dragged by some street noise, and had closed his eyes again, in the
vain hope that he might dream it on to its end. But it came no more;
and lighting his pipe, he lay there wondering at its fervid, fantastic
realism. Death was nothing, if his country lived and won. In waking
hours he never had quite that single-hearted knowledge of himself. And
what marvellously real touches got mixed into the fantastic stuff of
dreams, as if something were at work to convince the dreamer in spite
of himself--"Hooray!" not "Hurrah!" Just common "Hooray!" And "the
English," not the literary "British." And then the soft flower had
struck his forehead, and Leila's voice cried: "Jimmy!"

When she left him, his thought was just a tired: 'Well, so it's begun
again!' What did it matter, since common loyalty and compassion cut him
off from what his heart desired; and that desire was absurd, as little
likely of attainment as the moon. What did it matter? If it gave her
any pleasure to love him, let it go on! Yet, all the time that he was
walking across under the plane trees, Noel seemed to walk in front of
him, just out of reach, so that he ached with the thought that he would
never catch her up, and walk beside her.

Two days later, on reaching his rooms in the evening, he found this
letter on ship's note-paper, with the Plymouth postmark--

"Fare thee well, and if for ever,
Then for ever fare thee well"
"Leila"

He read it with a really horrible feeling, for all the world as if he
had been accused of a crime and did not know whether he had committed it
or not. And, trying to collect his thoughts, he took a cab and drove to
her fiat. It was closed, but her address was given him; a bank in
Cape Town. He had received his release. In his remorse and relief, so
confusing and so poignant, he heard the driver of the cab asking where
he wanted to go now. "Oh, back again!" But before they had gone a mile
he corrected the address, in an impulse of which next moment he felt
thoroughly ashamed. What he was doing indeed, was as indecent as if
he were driving from the funeral of his wife to the boudoir of another
woman. When he reached the old Square, and the words "To let" stared him
in the face, he felt a curious relief, though it meant that he would
not see her whom to see for ten minutes he felt he would give a year of
life. Dismissing his cab, he stood debating whether to ring the bell.
The sight of