rten his hours.

"I know. I know myself!" he said. "I know my duty. And you are learning,
my boy, learning!"

Every day the flabby cheeks grew pastier and the pouches under the
eyebrows heavier. But there was no dimming of the eagle flashes of the
eyes, no weakening of the will. Last night Lanstron had turned as white
as chalk when Partow staggered on rising from the table, the veins on
his temples knotted blue whip-cords. Yet after a few hours' sleep he
reappeared with firm step, fresh for the fray.

The paraphernalia around these two was the same as that around
Westerling. Only the atmosphere of the staff was different. It had a
quality of sober and buoyant alertness and fatality of determination
rather than rigid confidence. Otherwise, there was the same medley of
typewriters and telegraph instruments, the same types of busy officers
and clerks that occupied the Galland house. To them, at least, war had
brought no surprises. Its routine was as they had anticipated it there
in the big division headquarters building, dissociated from the actual
experience of the intimate emotions of the front. Each man was
performing the part set for him. No man knew much of any other man's
part. Partow alone knew all, and Lanstron was trying to grasp all and
praying that Partow's old body should still feed his mind with energy.
Lanstron was thinner and paler, a new and glittering intensity in his
eyes.

A messenger had just brought in two despatches from the telegraph room.
One was from the taciturn press bureau of the Grays which flashed into
the Browns' headquarters from a neutral country at the same time that it
flashed around the world to illumine bulletin-boards in every language
of civilization. Day after day the Grays had announced the occupation of
fresh positions. This was the only news that they had permitted
egress--the news which read like the march of victory to the eager world
of the press, hastening to quick conclusions. To-day came the official
word that Westerling had established his headquarters on conquered
territory. Proof, this, that five could drive back three; that the weak
could not resist the strong!

"Hm-m--indeed!" exclaimed Partow, lifting his brow into massive,
corrugated wrinkles. "It may affect the stock market, but not the
result."

The other despatch was also out of the land of the Grays, but not by
Westerling's consent or knowledge. By devious ways it had broken through
the censorship of the f