fices that I was allowed to
take Edgecumbe to Devonshire with me, as of course he, only having just
joined the corps, was not entitled to leave so soon. As it was, he was
allowed only a long week-end. I thought of these things on our way to
Devonshire, and I wondered what the future would bring forth. Anyhow,
it was a further blow, if further blow were needed to my suspicions.
Neither Captain Springfield nor Maurice St. Mabyn was an artillery
officer, and if Colonel Heywood was right, even although they had known
each other, they had belonged to different services.

'I feel awfully nervous,' said Edgecumbe to me, after the train had
left Exeter.

'Why?'

'I am acting against my judgment in accepting this invitation; why
should I go to this house? I never saw this girl before, and from what
you tell me, you have met her only once.'

'For that matter,' I said, 'I feel rather sensitive myself. The fact
that we have only met once makes it a bit awkward for me to be going to
her father's house.'

'Did you fall in love with her, or anything of that sort?' he asked.

'No-o,' I replied. 'I was tremendously impressed by her, and, for such
a short acquaintance, we became great friends. The fact that we have
kept up a correspondence ever since proves it. But there is no
suggestion of anything like love between us. I admire her
tremendously, but I am not a marrying man.'

'I wonder how she'll regard _me_?' And Edgecumbe looked towards the
mirror on the opposite side of the railway carriage. 'I am a
curious-looking animal, aren't I? Look at my parched skin.'

'It is not nearly as bad as it used to be,' I replied; 'it has become
almost normal. You are not so pale as you were, either.'

'Don't you think so? Heavens, Luscombe, but I must have had a strange
experience to make me look as I did when you saw me first!' Then his
mood changed. 'Isn't this wonderful country? I am sure I have seen it
all before.' And he looked out of the carriage window towards the
undulating landscape which spread itself out before us.

'It is a glorious country,' he went on, like one thinking aloud.
'France is like a parched desert after this. Think of the peacefulness
of it, too! See that little village nestling on the hillside! see the
old grey church tower almost hidden by the trees! That is what a
country village ought to be. Yes, I'll go to Bolivick, after all. If
I am uncomfortable, I can easily make an excuse for lea