Joan was about to reply when the maid’s announcement of “Mrs. Denton” postponed the discussion. “Nothing like as dangerous as being in the Infantry,” he answered. “And that would be my only other alternative. Besides I get out of the drilling.” He laughed. “I should hate being shouted at and ordered about by a husky old sergeant.”!

“What is it you want me to do?” she faltered She was puzzled for the moment. “Oh, the old clergyman,” she answered, recollecting. “Oh, Calvary. All roads lead to Calvary, he thought. It was rather interesting.”

“But the people who can get harmed,” argued Joan. “The men who will be dragged away from their work, from their business, used as ‘cannon fodder.’” “I’m sure I am,” she said. “Make home-coming a change to him. As you said yourself the other evening. It’s good for him to get away from it all, now and then.” A Conscientious Objector. She might have guessed it. A “Conchy,” as they would call him in the Press: all the spiteful screamers who had never risked a scratch, themselves, denouncing him as a coward. The local Dogberrys of the tribunals would fire off their little stock of gibes and platitudes upon him, propound with owlish solemnity the new Christianity, abuse him and condemn him, without listening to him. Jeering mobs would follow him through the streets. More than once, of late, she had encountered such crowds made up of shrieking girls and foul-mouthed men, surging round some white-faced youngster while the well-dressed passers-by looked on and grinned.