f.

Though they were at all times the best of friends, the welcome Eustace
met with at the hands of Mrs Hoste on this occasion was of doubtful
cordiality. And the reason for this was twofold. First, the fact of
his arrival in company with Eanswyth went to confirm her rapidly
developing suspicions. Of course, it was a preconcerted arrangement.
Narrowly, she scrutinised the pair, and failed not to discern traces of
agitation and anxiety in the demeanour and appearance of, at any rate,
one of them. Then, again, she had just learned, to her dismay, the
intention of her husband to proceed to the front in a few hours. With
this defection she did not hesitate to connect Eustace, and she was
right. Wherefore, she regarded him as a treacherous friend at best and
scrupled not to tell him as much.

"It's all very well for you, Mr Milne," she said. "You have only got
yourself to please. But others haven't, and you ought to have more
sense than to aid and abet a couple of responsible fathers of families
like Mr Payne there and my stupid husband in any such folly."

"Ought he?" guffawed the stupid husband aforesaid, from another room
where he was cleaning a gun. "But I say, Ada? How is he to get to the
front by himself? It wouldn't be altogether safe. So, you see, he's
absolutely dependent on our escort. Eh, Payne?"

"_Ja_," replied that worthy, laconically.

"You should be more patriotic, Mrs Hoste," murmured Eustace. "You see,
you give us precious poor encouragement to die for our country--which
process is defined by the poet as a sweet and decorous one."

"Die for your fiddlestick!" was the half-laughing, half-angry reply.
"But, as I said before, it's all very well for you. Nobody is dependent
on you. Nobody cares what becomes of you."

Did they not? There was one in that room to whom his safety was dearer
than a hundred lives, whose heart was well-nigh bursting with unspoken
agony at the prospect of the parting which was drawing so near--that
parting which should send him forth for weeks, for months perhaps, with
peril and privation for daily companions. Yet she must keep up
appearances--must maintain a smooth and untroubled aspect. Nobody cared
for him!

The three men were to start an hour before midnight, and with two more
whom they were to meet just outside the settlement, reckoned themselves
strong enough to cross the hostile ground in comparative safety--
reckoning rather on evading the enemy than