r most certain conviction had been that he
would come back some day with a wife whom she, Betty, would try to teach
herself to love; but never had she visioned what had now actually
occurred, that is Radmore's quiet, commonplace falling-back into the
day-to-day life of Old Place.

All at once she heard Timmy's clear treble voice:--"Hullo! There's
Betty."

Radmore turned and said something Betty did not hear, and the child went
off like an arrow from the bow. Then Radmore, turning, came towards her
quickly. She had no clue to the strange look of pain and indecision on
his face, and her heart began to beat, strangely.

When close to her:--"Betty," he said in a low voice, "I want to tell you
that I didn't know about George till last night. How could you think I
did?"

"I suppose one does think unjust things when one's in great trouble," she
answered.

He felt hurt and angry and showed it. "I should have thought you would
all have known me well enough to know that I should have written at
once--at once. Why, the whole world's altered now that I know that George
is no longer in it! Perhaps that sounds foolish and exaggerated, as I
never wrote to him. But I think _you'll_ know what I mean, Betty? It was
all right, as long as I knew he was somewhere, happy."

She said almost inaudibly:--"I think that he is happy somewhere. You
know--but no, you don't know--that George was a born soldier. Those
months after he joined up, and until he was killed, were, I do believe,
by far the happiest of his life. He always said they were."

As he made no answer she went on:--"I'll show you some of his letters
if you like, and father will show you the letters that were sent to
us--afterwards."

By now they had left the garden proper, and were walking down an avenue
which was known as the Long Walk. It was here that they two, with George
always as a welcome third, used to play "tip and run" and "hide and seek"
with the then little children.

"Tell me something about the others," he said abruptly. "I'm moving in a
world unrealised."

She smiled up into his face. Somehow that confession touched her, and
brought them nearer to one another.

"Jack frightens me a bit, you know--he's so unlike George. And then the
girls? Is it true what Timmy says--that Rosamund wants to be an actress?"

There was a slight tone of censorious surprise in his voice, and Betty
reddened.

"I don't see why she shouldn't be an actress if she wants to be! Fa