nothing. He was absorbed in contemplating the photograph.
They had been taken standing by the hurdle of the sheepfold, she with the
young lamb in her arms and John looking down at her.

"That was taken at Barrow Hill Farm," she said, "where we were together.
He looked just like that.... Oh, Billy, do you think the past's really
past?... Isn't there some way he could go on being what he _was_?"

"I don't know, Sharlie, I don't know."

"Why couldn't he have stayed there! Then he'd always have been like that.
We should never have known."

"You're not going to be unhappy about him?"

"No. I think I'm glad. It's a sort of relief. I shan't ever have that
awful feeling of wondering what he'll do next.... Billy--you were with
him, weren't you?"

"Yes."

"Was he all right?"

"Would it make you happier to think that he was or to know that he
wasn't?"

"Oh--just to _know_."

"Well, I'm afraid he wasn't, quite.... He paid for it, Sharlie. If he
hadn't turned his back he wouldn't have been shot."

She nodded.

"What? You knew?"

"No. No. I wasn't sure."

She was possessed of this craving to know, to know everything. Short of
that she would be still bound to him; she could never get free.

"Billy--what did happen, really? Did he _leave_ the German?"

"The German?"

"Yes. Was that why he shot him?"

"The German didn't shoot him. He was too far gone, poor devil, to shoot
anybody.... It was the Belgian captain that he left.... He was lying
there, horribly wounded. His servant was with him; they were calling out
to Conway--"

"_Calling_ to him?"

"Yes. And he was going all right when some shrapnel fell--a regular
shower bath, quite near, like it did with you and me. That scared him and
he just turned and ran. The servant shouted to him to stop, and when he
wouldn't he went after him and put a bullet through his back."

"That Belgian boy?"

"Yes. I couldn't do anything. I had the German. It was all over in a
second.... When I got there I found the Belgian standing up over him,
wiping his bayonet with his pockethandkerchief. He _said_ his rifle went
off by accident."

"Couldn't it? Rifles do."

"Bayonets don't.... I suppose I could get him court martialed if I tried.
But I shan't. After all, it was his captain. I don't blame him,
Charlotte."

"No.... It was really you and me, Billy. We brought him back to be
killed."

"I don't know that we did bring him--that he wasn't coming by himself. He
couldn't ke