winter better than usual--to be sure, there had been as yet no cold
weather to speak of; but she and Ethel intended, I believed, to start
for the south of France early in February. He inquired about you.
His comments were such as a man makes on hearing just what he expects to
hear, or knows beforehand. And for some time it seemed to be tacitly
taken for granted between us that I should ask him no questions.

"As for me--" I began, after a while.

He checked the mare's pace a little. "I know," he said, looking
straight ahead between her ears; then, after a pause, "it has been a bad
time for you, You are in a bad way altogether. That is why I came."

"But it was for _you!_" I blurted out. "Harry, if only I had known why
_you_ were taken--and what it was to _you!_"

He turned his face to me with the old confident comforting smile.

"Don't you trouble about _that. That's_ nothing to make a fuss about.
Death?" he went on musing--our horses had fallen to a walk again--
"It looks you in the face a moment: you put out your hands: you touch--
and so it is gone. My dear boy, it isn't for us that you need worry."

"For whom, then?"

"Come," said he, and he shook Vivandiere into a canter.



III