all comes back to me."

"All what?" Greene fidgeted on his chair. He tried to laugh, but without
success. His friend seemed bordering on collapse.

"Hush! Be quiet, and--I'll tell you," he said. "_Field made that scar._"

For a whole minute the two men looked each other full in the face
without speaking.

"Field made that scar!" repeated Marriott at length in a louder voice.

"Field! You mean--last night?"

"No, not last night. Years ago--at school, with his knife. And I made a
scar in his arm with mine." Marriott was talking rapidly now.

"We exchanged drops of blood in each other's cuts. He put a drop into my
arm and I put one into his--"

"In the name of heaven, what for?"

"It was a boys' compact. We made a sacred pledge, a bargain. I remember
it all perfectly now. We had been reading some dreadful book and we
swore to appear to one another--I mean, whoever died first swore to show
himself to the other. And we sealed the compact with each other's blood.
I remember it all so well--the hot summer afternoon in the playground,
seven years ago--and one of the masters caught us and confiscated the
knives--and I have never thought of it again to this day--"