Two reasons have impelled me to tell the story of Hugh Latimer, and both I think are good and sufficient. First I was his best friend, and second I know more about the tragedy than anyone else—even including his wife. I saw the beginning and the end; she—poor broken-hearted girl—saw only the end.

There have been many tragedies since this war started; there will be many more before Finis is written—and each, I suppose, to its own particular sufferers seems the worst. But, somehow, to my mind Hugh's case is without parallel, unique—the devil's arch of cruelty. I will give you the story—and you shall judge for yourself.

Let us lift the curtain and present a dug-out in a support trench somewhere near Givenchy. A candle gutters in a bottle, the grease running down like a miniature stalactite congeals on an upturned packing-case. On another packing-case the remnants of a tongue, some sardines, and a goodly array of bottles with some tin mugs and plates completes the furniture—or almost. I must not omit the handsome coloured pictures—three in all—of ladies of great beauty and charm, clad in—well, clad in something at any rate. The occupants of this palatial abode were Hugh Latimer and myself; at the rise of the curtain both lying in corners, on piles of straw.

Outside, a musician was coaxing noises from a mouth-organ; occasional snatches of song came through the open entrance, intermingled with bursts of laughter. One man, I remember, was telling an interminable story which seemed to be the history of a gentleman called Nobby Clark, who had dallied awhile with a lady in an estaminet at Bethune, and had ultimately received a knock-out blow with a frying-pan over the right eye, for being too rapid in his attentions. Just the usual dull, strange, haunting trench life—which varies not from day's end to day's end.

At intervals a battery of our own let drive, the blast of the explosion catching one through the open door; at intervals a big German shell moaned its way through the air overhead—an express bound for somewhere. Had you looked out to the front, you would have seen the bright green flares lobbing monotonously up into the night, all along the line. War—modern war; boring, incredible when viewed in cold blood....

"Hullo, Hugh." A voice at the door roused us both from our doze, and the Adjutant came in. "Will you put your watches right by mine? We are making a small local attack to-morrow morning, and the battalion is to leave the trenches at 6.35 exactly."

"Rather sudden, isn't it?" queried Hugh, setting his watch.

"Just come through from Brigade Headquarters. Bombs are being brought up to H.15. Further orders sent round later. Bye-bye."

He was gone, and once more we sat thinking to the same old accompaniment of trench noises; but in rather a different frame of mind. To-morrow morning at 6.35 peace would cease; we should be out and running over the top of the ground; we should be...

"Will they use gas, I wonder?" Hugh broke the silence.

"Wind too fitful," I answered; "and I suppose it's only a small show."

"I wonder what it's for. I wish one knew more about these affairs; I suppose one can't, but it would make it more interesting."

The mouth-organ stopped; there were vigorous demands for an encore.

"Poor devils," he went on after a moment. "I wonder how many?—I wonder how many?"

"A new development for you, Hugh." I grinned at him. "Merry and bright, old son—your usual motto, isn't it?"

He laughed. "Dash it, Ginger—you can't always be merry and bright. I don't know why—perhaps it's second sight—but I feel a sort of presentiment of impending disaster to-night. I had the feeling before Clements came in."

"Rot, old man," I answered cheerfully. "You'll probably win a V.C., and the greatest event of the war will be when it is presented to your cheeild."

Which prophecy was destined to prove the cruellest mixture of truth and fiction the mind of man could well conceive....

"Good Lord!" he said irritably, taking me seriously for a moment; "we're a bit too old soldiers to be guyed by palaver about V.C.'s." Then he recovered his good temper. "No, Ginger, old thing, there's big things happening to-morrow. Hugh Latimer's life is going into the melting-pot. I'm as certain of it as—as that I'm going to have a whisky and soda." He laughed, and delved into a packing-case for the seltzogene.

"How's the son and heir?? I asked after a while.

"Going strong," he answered. "Going strong, the little devil."

And then we fell silent, as men will at such a time. The trench outside was quiet; the musician, having obliged with his encore, no longer rendered the night hideous—even the guns were still. What would it be to-morrow night? Should I still be...? I shook myself and started to scribble a letter; I was getting afraid of inactivity—afraid of my thoughts.

"I'm going along the trenches," said Hugh suddenly, breaking the long silence. "I want to see the Sergeant-Major and give some orders."

He was gone, and I was alone. In spite of myself my thoughts would drift back to what he had been saying, and from there to his wife and the son and heir. My mind, overwrought, seemed crowded with pictures: they jumbled through my brains like a film on a cinematograph.

I saw his marriage, the bridal arch of officers' swords, the sweet-faced, radiant girl. And then his house came on to the screen—the house where I had spent many a pleasant week-end while we trained and sweated to learn the job in England. He was a man of some wealth was Hugh Latimer, and his house showed it; showed moreover his perfect, unerring taste. Bits of stuff, curios, knick-knacks from all over the world met one in odd corners; prints, books, all of the very best, seemed to fit into the scheme as if they'd grown there. Never did a single thing seem to whisper as you passed, "I'm really very rare and beautiful, but I've been dragged into the wrong place, and now I know I'm merely vulgar." There are houses I wot of where those clamorous whispers drown the nightingales. But if you can pass through rooms full of bric-À-brac—silent bric-À-brac: bric-À-brac conscious of its rectitude and needing no self apology, you may be certain that the owner will not give you port that is improved by a cigarette.

Then came the son, and Hugh's joy was complete. A bit of a dreamer, a bit of a poet, a bit of a philosopher, but with a virility all his own; a big man—a man in a thousand, a man I was proud to call Friend. And he—at the dictates of "Kultur"—was to-morrow at 6.35 going to expose himself to the risk of death, in order to wrest from the Hun a small portion of unprepossessing ground. Truly, humour is not dead in the world!...

A step outside broke the reel of pictures, and the Sapper Officer looked in. "I hear a whisper of activity in the dark and stilly morn," he remarked brightly. "Won't it be nice?"

"Very," I said sarcastically. "Are you coming?"

"No, dear one. That's why I thought it would be so nice. My opposite number and tireless companion and helper to-morrow morning will prance over the greensward with you, leading his merry crowd of minions, bristling with bowie knives, sandbags, and other impedimenta."

"Oh! go to Hell," I said crossly. "I want to write a letter."

"Cheer up, Ginger." He dropped his bantering tone. "I'll be up to drink a glass of wine with you to-morrow night in the new trench. Tell Latimer that the wire is all right—it's been thinned out and won't stop him, and that there are ladders for getting out of the trench on each traverse."

"Have you been working?" I asked.

"Four hours, and got caught by shrapnel in the middle. Night-night, and good luck, old man."

He was gone; and when he had, I wished him back again. For the game wasn't new to him—he'd done it before; and I hadn't. It tends to give one confidence....

It was about four I woke up. For a few blissful moments I lay forgetful; then I turned and saw Hugh. There was a new candle in the bottle, and by its flicker I saw the glint in his sombre eyes, the clear-cut line of his profile. And I remembered....

I felt as if something had caught me by the stomach—inside: a sinking feeling, a feeling of nausea: and for a while I lay still. Outside in the darkness the men were rousing themselves; now and again a curse was muttered as someone tripped over a leg he didn't see; and once the Sergeant-Major's voice rang out—"'Ere, strike a light with them breakfasts."

"Awake, Ginger?" Hugh prodded me with his foot. "You'd better get something inside you, and then we'll go round and see that everything is O.K."

"Have you had any sleep, Hugh?"

"No. I've been reading." He put Maeterlinck's "Blue Bird" on the table. With his finger on the title he looked at me musingly, "Shall we find it to-day, I wonder?"

I have lingered perhaps a little long on what is after all only the introduction to my story. But it is mainly for the sake of Hugh's wife that I have written it at all; to show her how he passed the last few hours before—the change came. Of what happened just after 6.35 on that morning I cannot profess to have any very clear idea. We went over the parapet I remember, and forward at the double. For half an hour beforehand a rain of our shells had plastered the German trenches in front of us, and during those eternal thirty minutes we waited tense. Hugh Latimer alone of all the men I saw seemed absolutely unconscious of anything unusual. Some of the men were singing below their breath, and one I remember sucked his teeth with maddening persistency. And one and all watched me curiously, speculatively—or so it seemed to me. Then we were off, and of crossing No-Man's-Land I have no recollection. I remember a man beside me falling with a crash and nearly tripping me up—and then, at last, the Huns. I let drive with my revolver from the range of a few inches into the fat, bloated face of a frightened-looking man in dirty grey, and as he crashed down I remember shouting, "There's the Blue Bird for you, old dear." Little things like that do stick. But everything else is just a blurred phantasmagoria in my mind. And after a while it was over. The trench was full of still grey figures, with here and there a khaki one beside them. A sapper officer forced his way through shouting for a working-party. We were the flanking company, and vital work had to be done and quick. Barricades rigged up, communication trenches which now ran to our Front blocked up, the trench made to fire the other way. For we knew there would be a counter-attack, and if you fail to consolidate what you've won you won't keep it long. It was while I slaved and sweated with the men shifting sandbags—turning the parados, or back of the trench into the new parapet, or front—that I got word that Hugh was dead. I hadn't seen him since the morning, and the rumour passed along from man to man.

"The Captain's took it. Copped it in the head. Bomb took him in the napper."

But there was no time to stop and enquire, and with my heart sick within me I worked on. One thing at any rate; it had only been a little show, but it had been successful—the dear chap hadn't lost his life in a failure. Then I saw the doctor for a moment.

"No, he's not dead," he said, "but—he's mighty near it. You know he practically ran the show single-handed on the left flank."

"What did he do?" I cried.

"Do? Why he kept a Hun bombing-party who were working up the trench at bay for half an hour by himself, which completely saved the situation, and then went out into the open, when he was relieved, and pulled in seven men who'd been caught by a machine-gun. It was while he was getting the last one that a bomb exploded almost on his head. Why he wasn't killed on the spot, I simply can't conceive." And the doctor was gone.

But strange things happen, and the hand of Death is ever capricious. Was it not only the other day that we exploded a mine, and sailing through the air there came a Hun—a whole complete Hun. Stunned and winded he fell on the parapet of our trench, and having been pulled in and revived, at last sat up. "Goot," he murmured; "I hof long vanted to surrender...."

Hugh Latimer was not dead—that was the great outstanding fact; though had I known the writing in the roll of Fate, I would have wished a thousand times that the miracle had not happened. There are worse things than death....

And now I bring the first part of my tragedy to a halt; the beginning as I called it—that part which Hugh's wife did not know. She, with all the world, saw the announcement in the paper, the announcement—bald and official of the deed for which he won his V.C. It was much as the doctor described it to me. She, with all the world, saw his name in the Casualty List as wounded; and on receipt of a telegram from the War Office, she crossed to France in fear and trembling—for the wire did not mince words; his condition was very critical. He did not know her—he was quite unconscious, and had been so for days. That night they were trephining, and there was just a hope....

The next morning Hugh knew his wife.

For the next three months I did not see him. The battalion was still up, and I got no chance of going down to Boulogne. He didn't stay there long, but, following the ordinary routine of the R.A.M.C., went back to England in a hospital ship, and into a home in London. Sir William Cremer, the eminent brain specialist, who had operated on him, and been particularly interested in his case, kept him under his eye for a couple of months, and then he went to his own home to recuperate.

All this and a lot more besides I got in letters from his wife. The King himself had graciously come round and presented him with the cross—and she was simply brimming over with happiness, dear soul. He was ever so much better, and very cheerful; and Sir William was a perfect dear; and he'd actually taken out six ounces of brain during the operation, and wasn't it wonderful. Also the son and heir grew more perfect every day. Which news, needless to say, cheered me immensely.

Then came the first premonition of something wrong. For a fortnight I'd not heard from her, and then I got a letter which wasn't quite so cheerful.

"... Hugh doesn't seem able to sleep." So ran part of it. "He is terribly restless, and at times dreadfully irritable. He doesn't seem to have any pain in his head, which is a comfort. But I'm not quite easy about him, Ginger. The other evening I was sitting opposite to him in the study, and suddenly something compelled me to look at him. I have never seen anything like the look in his eyes. He was staring at the fire, and his right hand was opening and shutting like a bird's talon. I was terrified for a moment, and then I forced myself to speak calmly.

"'Why this ferocious expression, old boy,' I said, with a laugh. For a moment he did not answer, but his eyes left the fire, and travelled slowly round till they met mine. I never knew what that phrase meant till then; it always struck me as a sort of author's license. But that evening I felt them coming, and I could have screamed. He gazed at me in silence and then at last he spoke.

"'Have you ever heard of the Death Grip? Some day I'll tell you about it.' Then he looked away, and I made an excuse to go out of the room, for I was shaking with fright. It was so utterly unlike Hugh to make a silly remark like that. When I came back later, he was perfectly calm and his own self again. Moreover, he seemed to have completely forgotten the incident, because he apologised for having been asleep.

"I wanted Sir William to come down and see him; or else for us to go up to town, as I expect Sir William is far too busy. But Hugh wouldn't hear of it, and got quite angry—so I didn't press the matter. But I'm worried, Ginger...."

I read this part of the letter to our doctor. We were having an omelette of huit-oeufs, and une bouteille de vin rouge in a little estaminet way back, I remember; and I asked him what he thought.

"My dear fellow," he said, "frankly it's impossible to say. You know what women are; and that letter may give quite a false impression of what really took place. You see what I mean: in her anxiety she may have exaggerated some jocular remark. She's had a very wearing time, and her own nerves are probably a bit on edge. But——" he paused and leaned back. "Encore du vin, s'il vous plaÎt, mam'selle. But, Ginger, it's no good pretending, there may be a very much more sinister meaning behind it all. The brain is a most complex organisation, and even such men as Cremer are only standing on the threshold of knowledge with regard to it. They know a lot—but how much more there is to learn! Latimer, as you know, owes his life practically to a miracle. Not once in a thousand times would a man escape instant death under such circumstances. A great deal of brain matter was exposed, and subsequently removed at Boulogne by Sir William, when he trephined. And it is possible that some radical alteration has taken place in Hugh Latimer's character, soul—whatever you choose to call that part of a man which controls his life—as a result of the operation. If what Mrs. Latimer says is the truth—and when I say that I mean if what she says is to be relied on as a cold, bald statement of what happened—then I am bound to say that I think the matter is very serious indeed."

"God Almighty!" I cried, "do you mean to say that you think there is a chance of Hugh going mad?"

"To be perfectly frank, I do; always granted that that letter is reliable. I consider it vital that whether he wishes to or whether he doesn't, Sir William Cremer should be consulted. And—at once." The doctor emphasised his words with his fist on the table.

"Great Scott! Doc," I muttered. "Do you really think there is danger?"

"I don't know enough of the case to say that. But I do know something about the brain, enough to say that there might be not only danger, but hideous danger, to everyone in the house." He was silent for a bit and then rapped out. "Does Mrs. Latimer share the same room as her husband?"

"I really don't know," I answered. "I imagine so."

"Well, I don't know how well you know her; but until Sir William gives a definite opinion, if I knew her well enough, I would strongly advise her to sleep in another room—and lock the door."

"Good God! you think ..."

"Look here, Ginger, what's the good of beating about the bush. It is possible—I won't say probable—that Hugh Latimer is on the road to becoming a homicidal maniac. And if, by any chance, that assumption is correct, the most hideous tragedy might happen at any moment. Mam'selle, l'addition s'il vous plaÎt. You're going on leave shortly, aren't you?"

"In two days," I answered.

"Well, go down and see for yourself; it won't require a doctor to notice the symptoms. And if what I fear is correct, track out Cremer in his lair—find him somehow and find him quickly."

We walked up the road together, and my glance fell on the plot of ground on the right, covered so thickly with little wooden crosses. As I looked away the doctor's eyes and mine met. And there was the same thought in both our minds.

Three days later I was in Hugh's house. His wife met me at the station, and before we got into the car my heart sank. I knew something was wrong.

"How is he?" I asked, as we swung out of the gates.

"Oh! Ginger," she said. "I'm frightened—frightened to death."

"What is it, lady," I cried. "Has he been looking at you like that again, the way you described in the letter?"

"Yes—it's getting more frequent. And at nights—oh! my God! it's awful. Poor old Hugh."

She broke down at that, while I noticed that her hands were all trembling, and that dark shadows were round her eyes.

"Tell me about it," I said, "for we must do something."

She pulled herself together, and called through the speaking-tube to the chauffeur. "Go a little way round, Jervis. I don't want to get in till tea-time."

Then she turned to me. "Since his operation I've been using another room." The doctor's words flashed into my mind. "Sir William thought it essential that he should have really long undisturbed nights, and I'm such a light sleeper. For a few weeks everything panned out splendidly. He seemed to get better and stronger, and he was just the same dear old Hugh he's always been. Then gradually the restlessness started; he couldn't sleep, he became irritable,—and the one thing which made him most irritable of all was any suggestion that he wasn't going on all right; or any hint even that he should see a doctor. Then came the incident I wrote to you about. Since that evening I've often caught the same look in his eye." She shuddered, and again I noticed the quiver in her hands, but she quickly controlled herself. "Last night, I woke up suddenly. It must have been about three, for it was pitch dark, and I think I'd been asleep some hours. I don't know what woke me; but in an instant I knew there was someone in the room. I lay trembling with fright, and suddenly out of the darkness came a hideous chuckle. It was the most awful, diabolical noise I've ever heard. Then I heard his voice.

"He was muttering, and all I could catch were the words 'Death-Grip.' I nearly fainted with terror, but forced myself to keep consciousness. How long he stood there I don't know, but after an eternity it seemed, I heard the door open and shut. I heard him cross the passage, and go into his own room. Then there was silence. I forced myself to move; I switched on the light, and locked the door. And when dawn came in through the windows, I was still sitting in a chair sobbing, shaking like a terrified child.

"This morning he was perfectly normal, and just as cheerful and loving as he'd ever been. Oh! Ginger, what am I to do?" She broke down and cried helplessly.

"You poor kid," I said; "what an awful experience! You must lock your door to-night, and to-morrow, with or without Hugh's knowledge, I shall go up to see Cremer."

"You don't think; oh! it couldn't be true that Hugh, my Hugh, is going——" She wouldn't say the word, but just gazed at me fearfully through her tears.

"Hush, my lady," I said quietly. "The brain is a funny thing; perhaps there is some pressure somewhere which Sir William will be able to remove."

"Why, of course that's it. I'm tired, stupid—it's made me exaggerate things. It will mean another operation, that's all. Wasn't it splendid about his getting the V.C.; and the King, so gracious, so kind...." She talked bravely on, and I tried to help her.

But suppose there wasn't any pressure; suppose there was nothing to remove; suppose.... And in my mind I saw the plot with the little wooden crosses; in my mind I heard the express for somewhere booming sullenly overhead. And I wondered ... shuddered.

Hugh met us at the door; dear old Hugh, looking as well as he ever did.

"Splendid, Ginger, old man! So glad you managed the leave all right."

"Not a hitch, Hugh. You're looking very fit."

"I am. Fit as a flea. You ask Elsie what she thinks."

His wife smiled. "You're just wonderful, old boy, except for your sleeplessness at night. I want him to see Sir William Cremer, Ginger, but he doesn't think it worth while."

"I don't," said Hugh shortly. "Damn that old sawbones."

In another man the remark would have passed unnoticed; but the chauffeur was there, and a maid, and his wife—and the expression was quite foreign to Hugh.

But I am bound to say that except for that one trifling thing I noticed absolutely nothing peculiar about him all the evening. At dinner he was perfectly normal; quite charming—his own brilliant self. When he was in the mood, I have seldom heard his equal as a conversationalist, and that night he was at the top of his form. I almost managed to persuade myself that my fears were groundless....

"I want to have a buck with Ginger, dear," he said to his wife after dinner was over. "A talk over the smells and joys of Flanders."

"But I should like to hear," she answered. "It's so hard to get you men to talk."

"I don't think you would like to hear, my dear." His tone was quite normal, but there was a strange note of insistence in it. "It's shop, and will bore you dreadfully." He still stood by the door waiting for her to pass through. After a moment's hesitation she went, and Hugh closed the door after her. What suggested the analogy to my mind I cannot say, but the way in which he performed the simple act of closing the door seemed to be the opening rite of some ceremony. Thus could I picture a morphomaniac shutting himself in from prying gaze, before abandoning himself to his vice; the drunkard, at last alone, returning gloatingly to his bottle. Perhaps my perceptions were quickened, but it seemed to me that Hugh came back to me as if I were his colleague in some guilty secret—as if his wife were alien to his thoughts, and now that she was gone, we could talk.... His first words proved I was right.

"Now we can talk, Ginger," he remarked. "These women don't understand." He pushed the port towards me.

"Understand what?" I was watching him closely.

"Life, my boy, the life. The life of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Gad! it was a great day that, Ginger." His eyes were fixed on me, and for the first time I noticed the red in them, and a peculiar twitch in the lids.

"Did you find the Blue Bird?" I asked quietly.

"Find it?" He laughed—and it was not a pleasant laugh. "I used to think it lay in books, in art, in music." Again he gave way to a fit of devilish mirth. "What damned fools we are, old man, what damned fools. But you mustn't tell her." He leaned over the table and spoke confidentially. "She'd never understand; that's why I got rid of her." He lifted his glass to the light, looking at it as a connoisseur looks at a rare vintage, while all the time a strange smile—a cruel smile—hovered round his lips. "Music—art," his voice was full of scorn. "Only we know better. Did I ever tell you about that grip I learned in Sumatra—the Death Grip?"

He suddenly fired the question at me, and for a moment I did not answer. All my fears were rushing back into my mind with renewed strength; it was not so much the question as the tone—and the eyes of the speaker.

"No, never." I lit a cigarette with elaborate care.

"Ah! Someday I must show you. You take a man's throat in your right hand, and you put your left behind his neck—like that." His hands were curved in front of him—curved as if a man's throat was in them. "Then you press and press with the two thumbs—like that; with the right thumb on a certain muscle in the neck, and the left on an artery under the ear; and you go on pressing, until—until there's no need to press any longer. It's wonderful." I can't hope to give any idea of the dreadful gloating tone in his voice.

"I got a Prussian officer like that, that day," he went on after a moment. "I saw his dirty grey face close to mine, and I got my hands on his throat. I'd forgotten the exact position for the grip, and then suddenly I remembered it. I squeezed and squeezed—and, Ginger, the grip was right. I squeezed his life out in ten seconds." His voice rose to a shout.

"Steady, Hugh," I cried. "You'll be frightening Elsie."

"Quite right," he answered; "that would never do. I haven't told her that little incident—she wouldn't understand. But I'm going to show her the grip one of these days. As a soldier's wife, I think it's a thing she ought to know."

He relapsed into silence, apparently quite calm, though his eyelids still twitched, while I watched him covertly from time to time. In my mind now there was no shadow of doubt that the doctor's fears were justified; I knew that Hugh Latimer was insane. That his loss of mental balance was periodical and not permanent was not the point; layman though I was, I could realise the danger to everyone in the house. At the moment the tragedy of the case hardly struck me; I could only think of the look on his face, the gloating, watching look—and Elsie and the boy....

At half-past nine he went to bed, and I had a few words with his wife.

"Lock your door to-night," I said insistently, "as you value everything, lock your door. I am going to see Cremer to-morrow."

"What's he been saying?" she asked, and her lips were white. "I heard him shouting once."

"Enough to make me tell you to lock your door," I said as lightly as I could. "Elsie, you've got to be brave; something has gone wrong with poor old Hugh for the time, and until he's put right again, there are moments when he's not responsible for his actions. Don't be uneasy; I shall be on hand to-night."

"I shan't be uneasy" she answered, and then she turned away, and I saw her shoulders shaking. "My Hugh—my poor old man." I caught the whispered words, and she was gone.

I suppose it was about two that I woke with a start. I had meant to keep awake the whole night, and with that idea I had not undressed, but, sitting in a chair before the fire, had tried to keep myself awake with a book. But the journey from France had made me sleepy, and the book had slipped to the floor, as has been known to happen before. The light was still on, though the fire had burned low; and I was cramped and stiff. For a moment I sat listening intently—every faculty awake; and then I heard a door gently close, and a step in the passage. I switched off the light and listened.

Instinctively, I knew the crisis had come, and with the need for action I became perfectly cool. Soft footsteps, like a man walking in his socks, came distinctly through the door which I had left ajar—once a board creaked. And after that sharp ominous crack there was silence for a space; the nocturnal walker was cautious, cautious with the devilish cunning of the madman.

It seemed to me an eternity as I listened—straining to hear in the silent house—then once again there came the soft pad-pad of stockinged feet; nearer and nearer till they halted outside my door. I could hear the heavy breathing of someone outside, and then stealthily my door was pushed open. In the dim light which filtered in from the passage Hugh's figure was framed in the doorway. With many pauses and very cautious steps he moved to the bed, while I pressed against the wall watching him.

His hands wandered over the pillows, and then he muttered to himself. "Old Ginger—I suppose he hasn't come to bed yet. And I wanted to show him that little grip—that little death-grip." He chuckled horribly. "Never mind—Elsie, dear little Elsie; I will show her first. Though she won't understand so well—only Ginger would really understand."

He moved to the door, and once again the slow padding of his feet sounded in the passage; while he still muttered, though I could not hear what he said. Then he came to his wife's door and cautiously turned the handle....

What happened then happened quickly. He realised quickly that it was locked, and this seemed to infuriate him. He gave an inarticulate shout, and rattled the door violently; then he drew back to the other side of the passage and prepared to charge it. And at that moment we closed.

I had followed him out of my room, and, knowing myself to be far stronger than him, I threw myself on him without a thought I hadn't reckoned on the strength of a madman, and for two minutes he threw me about as if I were a child. We struggled and fought, while frightened maids wrung their hands—and a white-faced woman watched with tearless eyes. And at last I won; when his temporary strength gave out, he was as weak as a child. Poor old Hugh! Poor old chap!...

Sir William Cremer came down the next day, and to him I told everything. He made all the necessary wretched arrangements, and the dear fellow was taken away—seemingly quite sane—and telling Elsie he'd be back soon.

"They say I need a change, old dear, and this old tyrant says I've been restless at night." He had his hand on Sir William's shoulder as he spoke, while the car was waiting at the door.

"Jove! little girl—you do look a bit washed out Have I been worrying you?"

"Of course not, old man." Her voice was perfectly steady.

"There you are, Sir William." He turned triumphantly to the doctor. "Still perhaps you're right. Where's the young rascal? Give me a kiss, you scamp—and look after your mother while I'm away. I'll be back soon." He went down the steps and into the car.

"And very likely he will, Mrs. Latimer. Keep your spirits up and never despair." Sir William patted her shoulder paternally, but over her bent head I saw his eyes.

"God knows," he said reverently to me as he followed Hugh. "The brain is such a wonderful thing; just a tiny speck and a genius becomes a madman. God knows."

Later on I too went away, carrying in my mind the picture of a girl—she was no more—holding a little bronze cross in front of a laughing baby—the cross on which is written, "For Valour." And once again my mind went back to that little plot in Flanders covered with wooden crosses.