teret said. "So
don't waste compassion on me. I'm as fit as a fiddle and in no wise
deserve it."

"Ah! but you and Aunt Felicia did stay," she repeated, her hands still
rather tremulously busy with coffee-pot and milk jug. "You were faithful
and I no better than a shirker. I fell through, miserably lost myself,
which was selfish, contemptible. I am ashamed. Only I was so startled. I
never really knew before such--such things could be.--Forgive me, Colonel
Sahib. I have been to Aunt Felicia and asked her forgiveness
already.--And don't think too meanly of me, please. The shirking is over
and done with for always. You may trust me it never will happen again--my
losing myself as I did last night, I mean."

In making this appeal for leniency, her eyes met Carteret's fairly for
the first time; and he read in them, not without admiration and a twinge
of pain, both the height of her new-born, determined valour and the depth
of her established distress.

"You needn't tell me that, you needn't tell me that, dear witch," he
answered quickly. "I was sure of it all along. I knew it was just a phase
which would have no second edition. So put any question of shame or need
of forgiveness out of your precious head. You were rushed up against
circumstances, against a revelation, calculated to stagger the most
seasoned campaigner. You did not shirk; but it took you a little time to
get your bearings. That was all. Don't vex your sweet soul with quite
superfluous reproaches.--Sugar? Yes, and plenty of it I am afraid.--But
you, too, must eat."

And on her making some show of repugnance--

"See here, we can't afford to despise the day of small things, of minor
aids to efficiency, dearest witch," he wisely admonished her.

Whereupon, emulous to please him, bending her will to his, Damaris
humbled herself to consumption of a portion of the contents of the
chafing-dishes aforesaid. To discover that, granted a healthy subject,
sorrow queerly breeds hunger, the initial distaste for food--in the main
a sentimental one--once surmounted.

Later McCabe joined them. Recognized Damaris' attitude of valour, and
inwardly applauded it, although himself in woeful state. For he was hard
hit, badly upset. Conscious of waste of tissue, he set about to restore
it without apology or hesitation, trouble putting an edge to appetite in
his case also, and that of formidable keenness. Bitterly he grieved,
since bearing the patient, he feared very certainly