ou like a brick, hasn't she?"

"That's the devil of it," replied Doggie, rubbing up his hair.

"Why the devil of it?" Oliver asked quickly.

"Oh, I don't know," replied Doggie. "As you have once or twice
observed, it's a funny old war."

He rose, went to the door.

"Where are you off to?" asked Oliver.

"I'm going to Denby Hall to take a look round."

"Like me to come with you? We can borrow the two-seater."

Doggie advanced a pace. "You're an awfully good sort, Oliver," he
said, touched, "but would you mind--I feel rather a beast----"

"All right, you silly old ass," cried Oliver cheerily. "You want, of
course, to root about there by yourself. Go ahead."

"If you'll take a spin with me this afternoon, or to-morrow----" said
Doggie in his sensitive way.

"Oh, clear out!" laughed Oliver.

And Doggie cleared.

CHAPTER XXI

"All right, Peddle, I can find my way about," said Doggie, dismissing
the old butler and his wife after a little colloquy in the hall.

"Everything's in perfect order, sir, just as it was when you left; and
there are the keys," said Mrs. Peddle.

The Peddles retired. Doggie eyed the heavy bunch of keys with an air
of distaste. For two years he had not seen a key. What on earth could
be the good of all this locking and unlocking? He stuffed the bunch in
his tunic pocket and looked around him. It seemed difficult to realize
that everything he saw was his own. Those trees visible from the hall
windows were his own, and the land on which they grew. This spacious,
beautiful house was his own. He had only to wave a hand, as it were,
and it would be filled with serving men and serving maids ready to do
his bidding. His foot was on his native heath, and his name was James
Marmaduke Trevor.

Did he ever actually live here, have his being here? Was he ever part
and parcel of it all--the Oriental rugs, the soft stair-carpet on the
noble oak staircase leading to the gallery, the oil paintings, the
impressive statuary, the solid, historical, oak hall furniture? Were
it not so acutely remembered, he would have felt like a man accustomed
all his life to barns and tents and hedgerows and fetid holes in the
ground, who had wandered into some ill-guarded palace. He entered the
drawing-room. The faithful Peddles, with pathetic zeal to give him a
true home-coming, had set it out fresh and clean and polished; the
windows were like crystal, and flowers welcomed him from every
available vase. And