, child, how did your dinner go off yesterday, and what did you
think of your new visitor? I saw him come away from here half an hour
ago. I suppose he has been calling."

"I don't like him at all," Isobel said decidedly.

"No? Well, then, you are an exception to the general rule."

"I thought him pleasant enough last night," Isobel said frankly. "He has
a deferential sort of way about him when he speaks to one that one can
hardly help liking. But he made me angry today. In the first place,
Doctor, he said you were a character."

The Doctor chuckled. "Well, that is true enough, my dear. There was no
harm in that."

"And then he said"--and she broke off--"he said what I feel sure cannot
be true. He said that Mr. Bathurst left the army because he showed the
white feather. It is not true, is it? I am sure it can't be true."

The Doctor did not reply immediately.

"It is an old story," he said presently, "and ought not to have been
brought up again. I don't suppose Forster or anyone else knows the
rights of the case. When a man leaves his regiment and retires when it
is upon active service, there are sure to be spiteful stories getting
about, often without the slightest foundation. But even if it had been
true, it would hardly be to Bathurst's disadvantage now he is no longer
in the army, and courage is not a vital necessity on the part of a
civilian."

"You can't mean that, Doctor; surely every man ought to be brave. Could
anyone possibly respect a man who is a coward? I don't believe it,
Doctor, for a moment."

"Courage, my dear, is not a universal endowment--it is a physical as
much as a moral virtue. Some people are physically brave and
morally cowards; others are exactly the reverse. Some people are
constitutionally cowards all round, while in others cowardice shows
itself only partially. I have known a man who is as brave as a lion in
battle, but is terrified by a rat. I have known a man brave in other
respects lose his nerve altogether in a thunderstorm. In neither of
these cases was it the man's own fault; it was constitutional, and by no
effort could he conquer it. I consider Bathurst to be an exceptionally
noble character. I am sure that he is capable of acts of great bravery
in some directions, but it is possible that he is, like the man I have
spoken of, constitutionally weak in others."

"But the great thing is to be brave in battle, Doctor! You would not
call a man a coward simply because he was af