nstitution was
almost impolite. At last he received an anonymous letter, "For little
Doggie Trevor, from the girls of Durdlebury," enclosing a white
feather.

The cruelty of it broke Doggie down. He sat in his peacock and ivory
room and nearly wept. Then he plucked up courage and went to Peggy.
She was rather white about the lips as she listened.

"I'm sorry," she said, "but I expected something of the sort to
happen."

"It's brutal and unjust."

"Yes, it's brutal," she admitted coldly.

"I thought you, at any rate, would sympathize with me," he cried.

She turned on him. "And what about me? Who sympathizes with me? Do you
ever give a moment's thought to what I've had to go through the last
few months?"

"I don't quite know what you mean," he stammered.

"I should have thought it was obvious. You can't be such an innocent
babe as to suppose people don't talk about you. They don't talk to you
because they don't like to be rude. They send you white feathers
instead. But they talk to me. 'Why isn't Marmaduke in khaki?' 'Why
isn't Doggie fighting?' 'I wonder how you can allow him to slack about
like that!'--I've had a pretty rough time fighting your battles, I can
tell you, and I deserve some credit. I want sympathy just as much as
you do."

"My dear," said Doggie, feeling very much humiliated, "I never knew. I
never thought. I do see now the unpleasant position you've been in.
People are brutes. But," he added eagerly, "you told them the real
reason?"

"What's that?" she asked, looking at him with cold eyes.

Then Doggie knew that the wide world was against him. "I'm not fit.
I've no constitution. I'm an impossibility."

"You thought you had nerves until you learned to drive the car. Then
you discovered that you hadn't. You fancy you've a weak heart. Perhaps
if you learned to walk thirty miles a day you would discover you
hadn't that either. And so with the rest of it."

"This is very painful," he said, going to the window and staring out.
"Very painful. You are of the same opinion as the young women who sent
me that abominable thing."

She had been on the strain for a long while and something inside her
had snapped. At his woebegone attitude she relented however, and came
up and touched his shoulder.

"A girl wants to feel some pride in the man she's going to marry. It's
horrible to have to be always defending him--especially when she's not
sure she's telling the truth in his defence."

He swung rou