ally. Only--I hate bats," I objected to my own
arrangement. I went on: "If you knew how I want to hear! It's the most
wonderful thing in my life, this afternoon--you."

"I know you are honest," he said. "Different from the ruck. I knew that
the moment I saw you."

"Then," I prodded, "do begin with the posters about Lord Kitchener."

"But that's not the beginning," he protested. "You'll spoil it all," he
said.

"Oh, no, then! Begin at the beginning. I didn't know. I wanted to get
you started."

The gray eyes dreamed down the placid river water.

"The beginning was before I was born. It began when Kitchener, a young
general, picked up a marauding party of black rascals on his way to
Khartoum. They had a captive, a white girl, a lady. They had murdered
her father and mother and young brother. The father was newly appointed
Colonel of a regiment, traveling to his post with his family. The Arabs
were saving the girl for their devilish head chieftain. Kitchener had
the lot executed, and sent for the girl. She was--"

The old man's hand lifted to his head and he took off his hat and laid
it on the ground.

"I cannot speak of that girl without uncovering," he said, quietly. "She
was my mother." There was an electrical silence. I knew enough to know
that no words fitted here. The old officer went on: "She was one of the
wonderful people. What she seemed to think of, after the horrors she had
gone through, was not herself or her suffering, but only to show her
gratitude. It was a long journey--weeks--through that land of hell,
while she was in Kitchener's hands, and not once did she lose courage.
The Sirdar told me that it was having an angel in camp--she held that
rough soldiery in the hollow of her hand. She told Kitchener her story,
and after that she would not talk of herself. You've heard that he never
had a love affair? That's wrong. He was in love then, and for the rest
of his life, with my mother."

I gasped. The shrapnel eyes menaced me.

"She could not speak of herself, d'you see? It was salvation to think
only of others, so that she'd not told him that she was engaged to my
father. Love from any other was the last thing she was thinking of.
After what had happened she was living from one breath to another and
she dared not consider her own affairs. The night before they reached
Cairo, Kitchener asked her to marry him. He was over forty then; she was
nineteen. She told him of her engagement, of course--told