the child
of sorrow? Here is my natural place--my only joy."

And she broke down into bitter helpless tears, pleading, it seemed, with
things and persons inexorable.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, in Beechcote village, that night, a man slept lightly,
thinking of Diana. Hugh Roughsedge, bronzed and full of honors, a man
developed and matured, with the future in his hands, had returned that
afternoon to his old home.

CHAPTER XXIII

"How is she?"

Mrs. Colwood shook her head sadly.

"Not well--and not happy."

The questioner was Hugh Roughsedge. The young soldier had walked up to
Beechcote immediately after luncheon, finding it impossible to restrain
his impatience longer. Diana had not expected him so soon, and had
slipped out for her daily half-hour with Betty Dyson, who had had a
slight stroke, and was failing fast. So that Mrs. Colwood was at
Roughsedge's discretion. But he was not taking all the advantage of it
that he might have done. The questions with which his mind was evidently
teeming came out but slowly.

Little Mrs. Colwood surveyed him from time to time with sympathy and
pleasure. Her round child-like eyes under their long lashes told her
everything that as a woman she wanted to know. What an improvement in
looks and manner--what indefinable gains in significance and
self-possession! Danger, command, responsibility, those great tutors of
men, had come in upon the solid yet malleable stuff of which the
character was made, moulding and polishing, striking away defects,
disengaging and accenting qualities. Who could ever have foreseen that
Hugh might some day be described as "a man of the world"? Yet if that
vague phrase were to be taken in its best sense, as describing a
personality both tempered and refined by the play of the world's forces
upon it, it might certainly be now used of the man before her.

He was handsomer than ever; bronzed by Nigerian sun, all the superfluous
flesh marched off him; every muscle in his frame taut and vigorous. And
at the same time a new self-confidence--apparently quite unconscious,
and the inevitable result of a strong and testing experience--was
enabling him to bring his powers to bear and into play, as he had
never yet done.

She recalled, with some confusion, that she--and Diana?--had tacitly
thought of him as good, but stupid. On the contrary, was she, perhaps,
in the presence of some one destined to do great things for his c