arently, in a
dark gown, and a small hat with a veil. The light was still good, and he
saw her clearly. He stopped indeed to watch her, puzzled to know what a
stranger could be doing in the park, and on that path at ten o'clock at
night. He was aware indeed that there were gay doings at Beechmark. He
had seen the illuminated garden and house from the upper park, and had
caught occasional gusts of music from the band to which no doubt the
quality were dancing. But the fact didn't seem to have much to do with
the person he was staring at.

And while he stared at her, she turned, and instantly perceived--he
thought--that she was observed. She paused a moment, and then made an
abrupt change of direction; running round the corner of the wood, she
reached the path along which he himself had just come and disappeared
from view.

The whole occurrence filliped the rustic mind; but before he reached his
own cottage, Stimson had hit on an explanation which satisfied him. It
was of course a stranger who had lost her way across the park, mistaking
the two paths. On seeing him, she had realized that she was wrong and had
quickly set herself right. He told his wife the tale before he went to
sleep, with this commentary; and they neither of them troubled to think
about it any more.

Perhaps the matter would not have appeared so simple to either of them
had they known that Stimson had no sooner passed completely out of sight,
leaving the wide stretches of the park empty and untenanted under a sky
already alive with stars, than the same figure reappeared, and after
pausing a moment, apparently to reconnoitre, disappeared within the wood.

"A year ago to-day, where were you?" said one Brigadier to another, as
the two Generals stood against the wall in the Beechmark drawing-room to
watch the dancing.

"Near Albert," said the man addressed. "The brigade was licking its
wounds and training drafts."

The other smiled.

"Mine was doing the same thing--near Armentieres. We didn't think then,
did we, that it would be all over in five months?"

"It isn't all over!" said the first speaker, a man with a refined and
sharply cut face, still young under a shock of grey hair. "We are in the
ground swell of the war. The ship may go down yet."

"While the boys and girls dance? I hope not!" The soldier's eyes ran
smiling over the dancing throng. Then he dropped his voice:

"Listen!"

For a very young boy and girl had come to stand in front o