under the prolonged torture. He sometimes has moments of
hideous collapse when he cannot shut out certain memories. He is more
afraid of such times than of anything else. He feels he must get hold of
himself."

Dowie's step slackened until it stopped. Her almost awed countenance
told him what she felt she must know or perish. He felt that she had her
rights and one of them was the right to be told. She had been a strong
tower of honest faith and love.

"My lord, might I ask if you have told him--all about it?"

"Yes, Dowie," he answered. "All is well and no one but ourselves will
ever know. The marriage in the dark old church is no longer a marriage.
Only the first one--which he can prove--stands."

The telling of his story to Donal had been a marvellous thing because he
had so controlled its drama that it had even been curiously undramatic.
He had made it a mere catalogued statement of facts. As Donal had lain
listening his heart had seemed to turn over in his breast.

"If I had _known_ you!" he panted low. "If we had known each other! We
did not!"

Later, bit by bit, he told him of Jackson--only of Jackson. He never
spoke of other things. When put together the "bit by bit" amounted to
this:

"He was a queer, simple sort of American. He was full of ideals and a
kind of unbounded belief in his country. He had enlisted in Canada at
the beginning. He always believed America would come in. He was sure the
Germans knew she would and that was why they hated Americans. The more
they saw her stirred up, the more they hated the fellows they
caught--and the worse they treated them. They were hellish to Jackson!"

He had stopped at this point and Coombe had noted a dreaded look dawning
in his eyes.

"Don't go on, my boy. It's bad for you," he broke in.

Donal shook his head a little as if to shake something away.

"I won't go on with--that," he said. "But the dream--I must tell you
about that. It saved me from going mad--and Jackson did. He believed in
a lot of things I'd not heard of except as jokes. He called them New
Thought and Theosophy and Christian Science. He wasn't clever, but he
_believed_. And it helped him. When I'm stronger I'll try to tell you.
Subconscious mind and astral body came into it. I had begun to see
things--just through starvation and agony. I told him about Robin when I
scarcely knew what I was saying. He tried to hold me quiet by saying her
name to me over and over. He'd pull me up with it.