“No,” said Joan. “But perhaps that’s the way the best fights are fought—without thinking.” Joan offered to go in and sit with the invalid. But Mary feared the exertion of talking might be too much for him. “He gets so excited,” she explained. She slipped out noiselessly.!

Mrs. Denton had died. She had left Joan her library, together with her wonderful collection of note books. She had brought them all up-to-date and indexed them. They would be invaluable to Francis when he started the new paper upon which they had determined. He was still in the hospital at Breganze, near to where his machine had been shot down. She had tried to get to him; but it would have meant endless delays; and she had been anxious about her father. The Italian surgeons were very proud of him, he wrote. They had had him X-rayed before and after; and beyond a slight lameness which gave him, he thought, a touch of distinction, there was no flaw that the most careful scrutiny would be likely to detect. Any day, now, he expected to be discharged. Mary had married an old sweetheart. She had grown restless in the country with nothing to do, and, at the suggestion of some friends, had gone to Bristol to help in a children’s hospital; and there they had met once more. “What’s he like to-night?” she asked, with a jerk of her head in the direction of the next room. She placed her bag carefully upon the sofa, and examined the new shawl as she did so.

“No,” answered Joan. “I’m a Lancashire lass.” “Or even Liverpool,” she laughed. “No,” the child answered. “Mama had a headache this morning, and I slipped out. You’re not keeping your promise.”