wife was still
alive--that they were still left to live for one another--one of the
first painful sensations in his mind was that he could not go out with
the Dictator to his landing in Gloria. It was clear to the stout old
soldier that it must take some time before he could be of any personal
use to any cause; and, despite of himself, he knew that he must regard
himself as an invalid. It was a hard stroke of ill-luck. Still, he had
known such strokes of ill-luck before. It had happened to him many a
time to be stricken down in the first hour of a battle, and to be sent
forthwith to the rear, and to lose the whole story of the struggle, and
yet to pull through and fight another day--many other days. So Sarrasin
took his wife's hand in his and whispered, 'We may have a chance yet; it
may not all be settled so soon as some of them think.'

Mrs. Sarrasin comforted him.

'If it can be all settled without us, darling, so much the better! If it
takes time and trouble, well, we shall be there.'

Consoled and encouraged by her sympathetic and resolute words, Sarrasin
fell into a sound and wholesome sleep.

CHAPTER XXVII

'SINCE IT IS SO!'

Helena had often before divined the Dictator. Now at last she realised
him. She had divined him in spite of her own doubts at one time--or
perhaps because of her own doubts, or the doubts put into her mind by
other minds and other tongues. She had always felt assured that the
Dictator was there--had felt certain that he must be there--and now at
last she knew that he was there. She had faith in him as one may have
faith in some sculptor whose masterpiece one has not yet seen. We
believe in the work because we know the man, although we have not yet
seen him in his work. We know that he has won fame, and we know that he
is not a man likely to put up with a fame undeserved. So we wait
composedly for the unveiling of his statue, and when it is unveiled we
find in it simply the justification of our faith. It was so with Helena
Langley. She felt sure that whenever her hero got the chance he would
prove himself a hero--show himself endowed with the qualities of a
commander-in-chief. Now she knew it. She had seen the living proof of
it. She had seen him tried by the test of a thoroughly new situation,
and she had seen that he had not wasted one moment on mere surprise. She
had seen how quickly he had surveyed the whole scene of danger, and how
in the flash of one moment's observation h