quite unexpected; her meeting with him had been the naked
impulse of her girlish heart. And, all that endless day, her grief
for the Captain had in no way hidden her evident pleasure in his own
presence. And then, all at once, had come the end, unexpected and
hence doubly crushing. His young, newborn happiness was as little
strong to bear the blow as were his exhausted body and his shattered
nerve. Like a wild beast wounded to the death, he had crept silently
away, to go through his agony, unseen.

Standing under the fierce glare of the electric light by the
hospital gate, his appearance would wellnigh have baffled the
recognition of his mother. Soiled and stained and tattered, his head
sunk between his shoulders, he looked a feeble man of middle years.
Dark shadows lay around his heavy gray eyes, and the corners of his
mouth drooped pitifully. And, somewhere inside that building, was
the girl who had snatched away from him what was dearer than life
itself. For six long months she had been the incentive to all of his
best work; it had been her influence which finally had led him to
come back into the firing line; it had been in the hope for the
future, a hope growing less and less vague as the months passed by,
that he had been willing and glad to prolong his stay through one
more torrid African summer. And to what end?

Strange to say, it never once occurred to him to try to win her love
now, after all that bad passed. Still less did it occur to him to
doubt the truth of her final words to the Captain. Weldon had missed
the look of appealing anguish in the blue eyes which she had lifted
to his; but he had heard the low, steady voice, had seen the
pressure of the living fingers answer to the slight movement of the
hand already growing cold. He had heard, and seen. It was enough.
Always he had believed implicitly in Ethel's truth. There was no
reason he should distrust her now. It was only that he had been an
egregious ass to think that he could win her love, in the face of a
man like Captain Leo Frazer. With a mighty effort, he straightened
his shoulders, faced the wing where he knew the Captain would now be
lying and reverently removed his hat. Then, for one last time, his
eyes swept over the building and, turning away, he crawled off
towards the railway station.

And, meanwhile, alone in a room behind one of those brightly-lighted
windows, a girl sat huddled together, her crossed arms on her knees
and her face bu