mself be carried
down to a transport, and shipped for England. He was utterly listless
and strengthless, although the voyage did him a little good. He did not
care where he went, so he stayed in town with me while I presented
myself at the Horse Guards and war Office, and then we travelled down
together to Deerhurst.

Oddly enough it was Christmas-eve again when we drove up the old avenue.
The snow was falling heavily, and lay deep on the road and thick on the
hedges and trees. The meadows and woods were white against the dark,
hushed sky, and the old church, and its churchyard cedars, were loaded
too with the clouds' Christmas gift. To me, at least, the English scene
was very pleasant, after the heat, and dirt, and minor worries of
Gallipoli and Constantinople. The wide stretching country, with its
pollards, and holly hedges, and homesteads, the cattle safe housed, the
yule fire burning cheerily on the hearths, the cottages and farms
nestling down among their orchards and pasture-lands, all was so
heartily and thoroughly English. They seemed to bring back days when I
was a boy skating and sliding on the mere at home, or riding out with
the harriers light-hearted and devil-me-care as a boy might be, coming
back to hear the poor governor's cheery voice tell me I was one of the
old stock, and to toss down a bumper of Rhenish with a time-honored
Christmas toast. The crackle of the crisp snow, the snort of the horses
as they plunged on into the darkening night, and the red fire-light
flickering on the lattice windows of the cottages we passed, were so
many welcomes home, and I double-thonged the off-wheeler with a
vengeance as I thought of soft lips that would soon touch mine, and a
soft voice that would soon whisper my best "Io triumphe!"

The lodge-gates flew open. We passed the old oaks and beeches, the deer
trooping away over the snow as we startled them out of their rest. We
were not expected that night, and my man rang such a peal at the bell as
might have been heard all over the quiet park. Another minute, and
Blanche and I were together again, and alone in the library where we had
parted just twelve months before. Of course, for the time being, we
neither knew nor cared what was going on in the other rooms of the
house. The Colonel had gone to rest himself on the sofa in the
dining-room. Half an hour had elapsed, perhaps, when a wild cry rang
through the house, startling even us, absorbed though we were in our
tet