lines, with the Boche shells making hell round him. And the other fellow
never rested till he'd crawled out to him, and taken him water, and tied
him up, and made a kind of shelter for him. The miner was a big fellow,
and the other was just a slip of a boy. So he couldn't drag in his
friend, but he got another man to go out with him, and between them they
did it right enough. And when I was in the clearing station next day, I
saw the two--the miner in bed, awfully smashed up, and the other sitting
by him. It made one feel choky. The boy could have put down a cool
hundred thousand, I suppose, if it could have done any good. But it
wouldn't. I can tell you, darling, this war knocks the nonsense out of a
man!'

'But Bridget is a woman!' said a dreamy voice beside him.

Sarratt laughed; but he was launched on recollections and could not stop
himself. Apparently everybody in his company was a hero, and had
deserved the Military Cross ten times over, except himself. He described
some incidents he had personally seen, and through the repressed fire
with which he spoke, the personality and ideals of the man revealed
themselves--normal, strong, self-forgetting. Had he even forgotten the
little creature beside him? Hardly, for instinctively he softened away
some of the terrible details of blood and pain. But he had forgotten
Nelly's prohibition. And when again they had entered the dark wood which
lay between them and the cottage on the river-bank, suddenly he heard a
trembling breath, and a sob.

He caught her in his arms.

'Nelly, darling! Oh, I was a brute to talk to you like this.'