colleges, a creditable degree, then an opening in the office of a
well-known firm of solicitors, friends of his father, and a temporary
commission, as soon as war broke out, on his record as a keen and
diligent member of the Harrow and Oxford O.T.C.'s:--these had been the
chief facts of his life up to August 1914;--that August which covered
the roads leading to the Aldershot headquarters, day by day, with the
ever-renewed columns of the army to be, with masses of marching men,
whose eager eyes said one thing only--'_Training_!--_training_!'

The war, and the causes of the war, had moved his nature, which was
sincere and upright, profoundly; all the more perhaps because of a
certain kindling and awakening of the whole man, which had come from his
first sight of Nelly Cookson in the previous June, and from his growing
friendship with her--which he must not yet call love. He had decided
however after three meetings with her that he would never marry anyone
else. Her softness, her yieldingness, her delicate beauty intoxicated
him. He rejoiced that she was no 'new woman,' but only a very girlish
and undeveloped creature, who would naturally want his protection as
well as his love. For it was his character to protect and serve. He had
protected and served his mother--faithfully and well. And as she was
dying, he had told her about Nelly--not before; only to find that she
knew it all, and that the only soreness he had ever caused her came from
the secrecy which he had tenderly thought her due.

But for all his sanity and sweet temper there was a hard tough strain in
him, which had made war so far, even through the horrors of it, a great
absorbing game to him, for which he knew himself fitted, in which he
meant to excel. Several times during the fighting that led up to Neuve
Chapelle he had drawn the attention of his superiors, both for bravery
and judgment; and after Neuve Chapelle, he had been mentioned in