from view.

The whole occurrence filliped the rustic mind; but before he reached his
own cottage, Stimson had hit on an explanation which satisfied him. It
was of course a stranger who had lost her way across the park, mistaking
the two paths. On seeing him, she had realized that she was wrong and had
quickly set herself right. He told his wife the tale before he went to
sleep, with this commentary; and they neither of them troubled to think
about it any more.

Perhaps the matter would not have appeared so simple to either of them
had they known that Stimson had no sooner passed completely out of sight,
leaving the wide stretches of the park empty and untenanted under a sky
already alive with stars, than the same figure reappeared, and after
pausing a moment, apparently to reconnoitre, disappeared within the wood.

"A year ago to-day, where were you?" said one Brigadier to another, as
the two Generals stood against the wall in the Beechmark drawing-room to
watch the dancing.

"Near Albert," said the man addressed. "The brigade was licking its
wounds and training drafts."

The other smiled.

"Mine was doing the same thing--near Armentières. We didn't think then,
did we, that it would be all over in five months?"

"It isn't all over!" said the first speaker, a man with a refined and
sharply cut face, still young under a shock of grey hair. "We are in the