morrow.... He is going to do a big
fly to-morrow! Little Boy Blue is going to fly and break the record._"

She sat in the stillness of her drawing-room, and tried to read. But
between her eyes and the printed page, burned in letters of fire: "_He
is going to fly to-morrow._"

She went down the garden to the chairs beneath the mulberry-tree. It
was cooler there; but the loneliness was too fierce an agony.

She walked up and down the lawn, now bathed in silvery moonlight. "_He
is going to do a big fly to-morrow. He jolly well means to break the
record._"

She passed in, and went to her bedroom. She lay in the darkness and
tried to sleep. She tried in vain. What if he got into
cross-currents? What if the propeller broke? What if the
steering-gear twisted? She began remembering every detail he had told
herself and Mollie; when she sat listening, thinking of him as Mollie's
lover, though all the while he had been her--Little Boy Blue.... "_Oh
of course then it is all U P.--But there must be pioneers!_"

At last she could bear it no longer. She lighted her candle, and rose.
She went to her medicine cupboard, and did a thing she had never done
before, in the whole of her healthy life. She took a sleeping draught.
The draught was one of Miss Ann's; left behind at the close of a recent
visit. She knew it contained chiefly bromide; harmless but effective.

She put out the light, and lay once more in darkness.

The bromide began to act.

The bird with the broken wing became less insistent.

The absent Boy drew near, and bent over, kneeling beside her.

She talked to him softly. Her voice sounded far away, and unlike her
own. "Be careful, Little Boy Blue," she said. "You may jolly
well--what an expression!--break the record if you like; but don't
break yourself; because, if you do, you will break my heart."

The bromide was acting strongly now. The bird with the broken wing had
gone. There was a strange rhythmical throbbing in her ears. It was
the Boy's aeroplane; but it had started without him. She knew sleep
was coming; merciful oblivion. Yet now she was too happy to wish to
sleep.

The Boy drew nearer.

"Oh, Boy dear, I love you so," she whispered into the throbbing
darkness; "I love you so."

"I know you do, dear," said the Boy. "It is almost unbelievable,
Christobel; but I know you do."

Then she put up her arms, and drew him to her breast.

Thus the Boy--though far away--marched ro