it to anyone but you, and I couldn't get off
before--they watched me so. I had to borrow these things to come in."

He was fumbling in the breast of his blouse. The weather was hot, and
the sheet of folded paper that he pulled out was not only dirty and
crumpled, but damp. He stood for a moment shuffling his feet uneasily;
then put up one hand and scratched the back of his head.

"You won't say anything," he began again timidly, with a distrustful
glance at her. "It's as much as my life's worth to have come here."

"Of course I shall not say anything. No, wait a minute----"

As he turned to go, she stopped him, feeling for her purse; but he drew
back, offended.

"I don't want your money," he said roughly. "I did it for him--because
he asked me to. I'd have done more than that for him. He'd been good to
me--God help me!"

The little catch in his voice made her look up. He was slowly rubbing a
grimy sleeve across his eyes.

"We had to shoot," he went on under his breath; "my mates and I. A man
must obey orders. We bungled it, and had to fire again--and he laughed
at us--he called us the awkward squad--and he'd been good to me----"

There was silence in the room. A moment later he straightened himself
up, made a clumsy military salute, and went away.

She stood still for a little while with the paper in her hand; then
sat down by the open window to read. The letter was closely written in
pencil, and in some parts hardly legible. But the first two words stood
out quite clear upon the page; and they were in English:

"Dear Jim."

The writing grew suddenly blurred and misty. And she had lost him
again--had lost him again! At the sight of the familiar childish
nickname all the hopelessness of her bereavement came over her afresh,
and she put out her hands in blind desperation, as though the weight of
the earth-clods that lay above him were pressing on her heart.

Presently she took up the paper again and went on reading:

"I am to be shot at sunrise to-morrow. So if I am to keep at all my
promise to tell you everything, I must keep it now. But, after all,
there is not much need of explanations between you and me. We always
understood each other without many words, even when we were little
things.

"And so, you see, my dear, you had no need to break your heart over
that old story of the blow. It was a hard hit, of course; but I have had
plenty of others as hard, and yet I have managed to get over them,--even