he had disappeared, he remained leaning, motionless, against
the gateway through which she had passed, his face immobile, twisted
and drawn so that it resembled some sculptured mask of Pain, his eyes
staring straight in front of him, blank and unseeing.

"Hullo, Trent!"

Miles Herrick, returning from the town to the hospital and taking, like
every one else, the short cut across the fields, waved a friendly arm as
he caught sight of Garth's figure silhouetted against the sky-line.

Then he drew nearer, and the set, still face of the other filled him
with a sudden sense of dismay. There was a new look in it, a kind of
dogged hopelessness. It entirely lacked that suggestion of austere
sweetness which had made it so difficult to reconcile his smirched
reputation with the man himself.

"What is it, Garth?" Instinctively Miles slipped into the more familiar
appellation.

Trent looked at him blankly. It seemed as though he had not heard the
question, or, at any rate, had not taken in its meaning.

"What did you say?" he muttered, his brows contracting painfully.

Miles slung the various packages with which he was burdened on to
the ground, and leaned up leisurely against the gatepost. It was
characteristic of him that, although the day was never long enough for
the work he crowded into it, he could always find time to give a helping
hand to a pal with his back against the wall.

"Out with it, man!" he said. "What's up?"

Slowly recognition came back in the other's eyes.

"What I might have anticipated," he answered, at last, in a curious flat
voice, devoid of expression. "I've sunk a degree or two lower in Sara's
estimation since the war broke out."

Miles regarded him quietly for a moment, a queer, half-humorous glint in
his eyes.

"I suppose she doesn't know you've half-beggared yourself, helping on
the financial side?"

"A man could hardly do less, could he?" he returned awkwardly. "But if
she did know--which she doesn't--it would make no earthly difference."

"Then--it's because you're not soldiering?"

"Exactly. I've not volunteered."

"Well"--composedly--"why don't you?"

Trent laughed shortly.

"That's my affair."

"With your physique you could wangle the age limit," pursued Miles
imperturbably.

"I should have to 'wangle' a good deal more than that,"--harshly. "Have
you forgotten that I was chucked from the Army?"

"There's such a thing as enlisting under another name."

"There is--and