"You will come to me on Christmas morning, Aleck?"

"I will come on Christmas morning."

"And no more after that of Pretty Pierre?"

"And no more of Pretty Pierre."

She trusted him; but neither could reckon with unknown forces.

Sergeant Fones, sitting in the barracks in talk with Private Gellatly,
said at that moment in a swift silence, "Exactly."

Pretty Pierre, at Pardon's Drive, drinking a glass of brandy at that
moment, said to the ceiling:

"No more of Pretty Pierre after to-morrow night, monsieur! Bien! If it
is for the last time, then it is for the last time. So....so."

He smiled. His teeth were amazingly white.

The stalwart figure strode on under the stars, the white night a lens for
visions of days of rejoicing to come. All evil was far from him. The
dolorous tide rolled back in this hour from his life, and he revelled in
the light of a new day.

"When I've played my last card to-morrow night with Pretty Pierre, I'll
begin the world again," he whispered.