He fairly ate his heart out in sheer loneliness.

There were two hours in the day that redeemed the others. One was
the hour late in the afternoon when, rehearsal over, he took Edith
O'Hara to tea. The other was just before he went to bed, when he
wrote her the small note that reached her every morning with her
breakfast.

In the seven days before he joined his regiment at Salisbury he
wrote her seven notes. They were candid, boyish scrawls, not love
letters at all. This was one of them:

_Dear Edith_: I have put in a rotten evening and am just
going to bed. I am rather worried because you looked so
tired to-day. Please don't work too hard.

I am only writing to say how I look forward each night to
seeing you the next day. I am sending with this a small
bunch of lilies of the valley. They remind me of you.
CECIL.

The girl saved those letters. She was not in love with him, but he
gave her something no one else had ever offered: a chivalrous
respect that pleased as well as puzzled her.

Once in a tea shop he voiced his creed, as it pertained to her, over
a plate of muffins.

"When we are both back home, Edith," he said, "I am going to ask you
something."

"Why not now?"

"Because it wouldn't be quite fair to you. I--I may be killed, or
something. That's one thing. Then, it's because of your people."

That rather stunned her. She had no people. She was going to tell
him that, but she decided not to. She felt quite sure that he
considered "people" essential, and though she felt that, for any
long period of time, these queer ideas and scruples of his would be
difficult to live up to, she intended to do it for that one week.

"Oh, all right," she said, meekly enough.

She felt very tender toward him after that, and her new gentleness
made it all hard for him. She caught him looking at her wistfully at
times, and it seemed to her that he was not looking well. His eyes
were hollow, his face thin. She put her hand over his as it lay on
the table.

"Look here," she said, "you look half sick, or worried, or
something. Stop telling me to take care of myself, and look after
yourself a little better."

"I'm all right," he replied. Then soon after: "Everything's strange.
That's the trouble," he confessed. "It's only in little things that
don't matter, but a fellow feels such a duffer."

On the last night he took her to dinner--a