fter, less selfish. And, Dick, I think she feels--as indeed I
do, too--that you have grown away from us. It is not the War, though
that takes men from us women, too; it is more just as if we were out of
sympathy with one another. Are we?"

"What a funny thought." Dick smiled down at her. "There has never been,
as you know, much sympathy between mother and myself. But for you,
Mabel, things will always be the same between us. I trust you with
everything I have."

"And yet you aren't quite trusting me now," she answered. "You are going
up to London to see this girl, aren't you, Dick?--and all this time you
have never written or spoken to me about her."

"I have been trying to forget," he confessed. "I thought, because of
something she did to me, that I was strong enough to shut her outside my
life. But last night the old battle began again in my mind, and I know
that I must see her before I go out. It is more than probable, Mabel,
that I shall not come back. I can't go out into the darkness without
seeing her again."

Mabel's hand tightened on his arm. "You mustn't say that, Dick," she
whispered. "You have got to come back."

They walked in silence and still Mabel debated the question in her mind.
Should she stand out of events, and let them, shape themselves? If Dick
went to London and found Joan gone, what would he do then? Perhaps he
would not see Fanny and the landlady would not be able to tell him where
Joan was. Wrotham would be the last place in which he would look for
her, and on Saturday he was leaving for the front. It was only just for
a second that her mind wavered; she had initially too straight a nature
for deceit.

"Dick," she said, coming to a standstill and looking up at him, "you
needn't go to London. Miss Rutherford"--she hesitated on the
word--"Joan, is back at Wrotham."

"At Wrotham?" he repeated, staring at her.

"Yes," she answered, "Old Miss Rutherford died two months ago. They had
sent for Joan; I believe she arrived the day her aunt died, and she has
stayed there ever since. Once or twice I have met her out with Colonel
Rutherford. No, wait"--she hurried on, once she had begun. "There is
something else I must tell you. I went, you know, to see her in London,
but I found that she had left. As I was coming away I met the other
girl--I cannot remember her name, but she came here to tea--she insisted
on my going back with her; she had something she wanted to tell me about
Joan. It was a lon