ut
of it again, as he imagined, without remark, until Isobel showed her
common and rather painful intimacy with its details, of which she
appeared to take a somewhat uncharitable view, at any rate so far as
the lady was concerned.

The other matter was more serious, since it involved the loss of his
greatest friend, Arthur Thorburn. Briefly, what happened was this.
There was a frontier disturbance. Godfrey, who by now was a staff
officer, had been sent to a far outpost held by Thorburn with a certain
number of men, and there took command. A reconnaissance was necessary,
and Thorburn went out for that purpose with over half of the available
garrison of the post, having received written orders that he was not to
engage the enemy unless he found himself absolutely surrounded. In the
end Thorburn did engage the enemy with the result that practically he
and his force were exterminated, but not before they had inflicted such
a lesson on the said enemy that it sued for peace and has been great
friends with the British power ever since.

First however a feeble attack was made on Godfrey's camp that he beat
off without the loss of a single man, exaggerated accounts of which
were telegraphed home representing it as a "Rorke's Drift defence."

Godfrey was heartbroken; he had loved this man as a brother, more
indeed than brothers often love. And now Thorburn, his only friend, was
dead. The Darkness had taken him, that impenetrable, devouring darkness
out of which we come and into which we go. Religion told him he should
not grieve, that Thorburn doubtless was much better off whither he had
gone than he could ever have been on earth, although it was true the
same religion said that he might be much worse off, since thither his
failings would have followed him. Dismissing the latter possibility,
how could he be happy in a new world, Godfrey wondered, having left all
he cared for behind him and without possibility of communication with
them?

In short, all the old problems of which he had not thought much since
Miss Ogilvy died, came back to Godfrey with added force and left him
wretched. Nor was he consoled by the sequel of the affair of which he
was bound to report the facts. The gallant man who was dead was blamed
unjustly for what had happened, as perhaps he deserved who had not
succeeded, since those who set their blind eye to the telescope as
Nelson did must justify their action by success.

Godfrey, on the other hand, who