at the world would say if a poor wretch of a girl
told a story like this of a youngster like Donal--when he was no longer
on earth to refute it.

And yet if these wild things were true, here in a wintry wood she sat a
desolate and undefended thing--with but one thought. And in that which
was most remote in his being he was conscious that he was for the moment
relieved because even worldly wisdom was not strong enough to overcome
his desire to believe in a certain thing which was--that the boy would
have played fair even when his brain whirled and all his fierce youth
beset him.

As he regarded her he saw that it would be difficult to reach her mind
which was so torn and stunned. But by some method he must reach it.

"You must answer all the questions I ask," he said. "It is for Donal's
sake."

She did not lift her face and made no protest.

He began to ask such questions as a sane man would know must be answered
clearly and as he heard her reply to each he gradually reached the
realisation of what her empty-handed, naked helplessness confronted.
That he himself comprehended what no outsider would, was due to his
memories of heart-wrung hours, of days and nights when he too had been
unable to think quite sanely or to reason with a normal brain. Youth is
a remorseless master. He could see the tempest of it all--the hours of
heaven--and the glimpses of hell's self--on whose brink the two had
stood clinging breast to breast. With subtle carefulness he slowly
gleaned it all. He followed the rising of the tide which at first had
borne them along unquestioning. They had not even asked where they were
going because the way led through young paradise. Then terror had
awakened them. There had come to them the news of death day after
day--lads they knew and had seen laughing a few weeks before--Halwyn,
Meredith, Jack or Harry or Phil. A false rumour of a sudden order to the
Front and they had stood and gazed into each other's eyes in a fateful
hour. Robin did not know of the picture her disjointed, sobbed-forth
sentences and words made clear. Coombe could see the lad as he stood
before her in this very Wood and then went slowly down upon his knees
and kissed her small feet in the moss as he made his prayer. There had
been something rarely beautiful in the ecstasy of his tenderness--and
she had given herself as a flower gives itself to be gathered. She
seemed to have seen nothing, noted nothing, on the morning of the mad
marr