ain and passion, conflict
and agony, desire and despair. She was not one of those befrilled,
fashion-plate dolls that one meets at the after-war crushes and dances,
but was austerely simple in dress, with a face which betrayed a spiritual
nobility, the very incarnation of modern womanhood, alive with modern
self-knowledge, modern weariness and modern sadness.

Her beautiful hair, worn plain and smooth, was black as night--wonderful
hair. But still more wonderful were those great, dark, velvety eyes, deep
and unfathomable. In them the tragedy of life was tumultuously visible,
yet they were serene, self-possessed, even steady in their quiet
simplicity. To describe her features is not an easy task. They were
clear-cut, with a purity of the lines of the nose and brow seldom seen in
a woman's face, dark, well-arched eyebrows, a pretty mouth which had just
escaped extreme sensuousness. Cheeks soft and delicately moulded, a chin
pointed, a skin remarkable for its fineness and its clear pallor, the
whole aspect of her face being that of sweetness combined with nobility
and majesty. In it there was no dominant expression, for it seemed to be
a mask waiting to be stirred into life.

Fetherston had known Sir Hugh slightly for several years, but as Enid had
been so much abroad with Mrs. Caldwell, he had never met her until that
accidental encounter in Biarritz.

"We've been up here six weeks," she was telling Fetherston. "Father
always gets a lot of golf up here, you know, and I'm rather fond of it."

"I fear I'm too much of a foreigner nowadays to appreciate the game,"
Walter laughed. "Last season some Italians in Rome formed a club--the
usual set of ultra-smart young counts and marquises--but when they found
that it entailed the indignity of walking several miles they declared it
to be a game only fit for the populace, and at once disbanded the
association."

The men were discussing the work of the battery, for four of the officers
had been invited, and the point raised was the range of mountain guns.

Walter Fetherston glanced at the general through his pince-nez with a
curious expression, but he did not join in the conversation.

Enid's eyes met his, and the pair exchanged curiously significant
glances.

He bent to pick up his serviette, and in doing so he whispered to her: "I
must see you outside for a moment before I go. Go out, and I'll join
you."

Therefore, when the meal had concluded, the girl went forth into th