It is a very funny feeling I experience in returning to these pages. I had left them since the first of May, when I wrote the last words of Chapter XI., and you will have noticed that several points remained unsolved. In this state my MS. had rested during six weeks, mostly because I did not know how to fill the gaps. But since yesterday things having changed, Fate with a capital F has added another chapter to my story.

You must know that we are getting ready for a great attack. As far as we can ascertain we are going in a few days to leave the trenches where we have been living cosily for so many months. Of course, you wonder; feeling snug in the trenches is somewhat unexpected. Yet it is true. And now the unceasing bombardment tells us: "We shall have to be going." Can you believe that it fills us with a sort of regret?

Yesterday at noon Charlie calls Cotton, Pringle, and me.

"My boys," he says, "the colonel has just had a bit of a chat with me. He wants four volunteers—three men and me—to go to-night and reconnoitre a certain place. I have thought of you three, but I had better tell you: it's not without danger, far from it."

"We're here," says I, "to do our duty."

"We'll have some fun, anyhow," declares Pringle.

And Guncotton adds:

"My manuscript is safely in London. I don't care."

I record this conventicle lest you should think that such resolutions are taken as in opera, where the four men would advance to each other and, uniting their four right handy in one single grip, sing a quartette.

"All right," says Charlie, "so long!"

He is about to go, but I recall him.

"Can I have a minute with you, Sergeant?"

"Ten. What's the matter?"

"There is a chance of our not coming back to-night?"

"Are you funky?"

"Charlie, I haven't deserved this. You know that I won't shirk."

"Well, what is it then?"

"It is ... it is simply that for some time you are changed towards me, you've been sulky, and I should not like to go off on the long journey without having made friends with you again."

He says nothing and stares into my face. Then after a while he asks:

"Have you written any more of that stuff?"

"What stuff?"

"That story of yours."

"Oh, I see. Yes. I have."

"Let's see."

I show him my story. He reads quickly, very quickly, skipping half-pages; in short, he reads as I should not like you, for instance, to read it. In less than half-an-hour he has run through all the pages. When he has finished he takes a long breath as though he felt relieved.

"Look here, P. C.," he says, "when you began that story I thought it was all stuff and nonsense. It amused me, and sometimes I thought that you knew how to strike a note of sincerity."

(I earnestly wish to point out that this kind of criticism is not my own; I guarantee that it is by Sergeant Young.)

He goes on:

"Very slowly it began to dawn upon me that there might be more truth in your narrative than I had first suspected. And then you let me see that photo."

He stops and looks at me as if at a loss how to go on.

"I had misunderstood what your story was driving at," he continues, "I thought that, as stories written in a light tone generally do, it was to finish with a marriage ... and, when I found out that it was a story which had really happened, I believed that you had married the lady of the photograph."

My dear reader, I promise you that I will repeat it no more after this time, but I must ask your leave to inform you once more that I felt silly. And I continued so when Charlie declared:

"I have known that woman."

"You have known her?"

"Oh!" he cries, "do not suspect anything wrong, do not jump to conclusions. Do you want to know how it all happened? By a lucky deal on the Paris Bourse I had realized a sum of about 200.000 francs. I never told you, that I used to live in Paris, after the Boer war, years ago. Never mind. Well, with my money I did a very foolish thing: I bought a little hotel. It was called 'The Grand-duke's hotel,' and was a smart place. Unfortunately, to keep a smart custom, you must advertize, and for this I had no money. Perhaps also to make a good innkeeper a certain talent is necessary, in which I was lacking. By and by my business declined, not in elegance, but in turnover. Still, there were always a few refined and well-paying guests who encouraged me to hope against hope. But one day—you know the date as well as I, P. C.—there came a couple who gave the concern its death stroke.

"They travelled under the name Count and Countess Dorff, but from the photograph alone I could tell you, that the lady was your Mitzi. However, there is another thing which coincides with your account. Not that they called themselves Dorff from the Archduke's nom de plume, I do not mean that, I mean another thing.

"On the ninth or tenth day after their arrival they came home rather early and at once retired to their apartment. Shortly afterwards George, my head waiter, came hurriedly into my private room, where I was working, and informed me that they were quarrelling—but so violently that I had better come. I am sorry, P. C., to have to show you an ugly side of an otherwise honourable trade, but eaves-dropping is sometimes necessary to an innkeeper. So I went and listened. At first I could hardly understand what they were saying, for although I speak German as perfectly as six other languages, I could not immediately make out their peculiar Viennese accent. Soon, however, I grew accustomed to it. The quarrel was apparently about money matters. Quarrels between couples in hotels generally are. But after a while the object of the dispute seemed to shift, they grew louder and then fainter again. Through the door of the next room, where I was listening, I could hear one of the two people excitedly opening a trunk and searching for something. Then I heard the woman say distinctly in an irritated voice:

'So your father took the papers?'

And the man answered:

'He did.'

'He stole the score of Griseldis? How did he do it?'

'He had only to step into your apartment, which a locksmith had opened for him. He knew the room, he knew the very drawer where the manuscript was kept, and he took it.'

"There came several questions from the woman which I don't remember, evidently asking how the Archduke had prepared the whole affair.

'He had obtained an engagement for your father,' explained the man, 'to play a concerto in Prague. He knew that this would cause him to be absent for three days. You had told Augusta that in such cases your maid used to ask you for a holiday, and my father had learned this detail by chance from Augusta. There was but one more difficulty: to remove you.'

"For a minute or so they both kept silent; then suddenly the woman cried fiercely:

'You sent me that wire!'

'I obeyed my father's orders,' answered the man.

'And for a full year you let me be suspected of being a thief ... protesting all the while that you loved me?'

'I do love you ... and I regret....'

'Ah! you regret, you scoundrel! And to show your regret you spoiled my life as your father had spoiled my father's work? Scoundrel, scoundrel, scoundrel!'

"I heard the man laugh, a cold, cruel laugh.

'No!' she went on, 'you do not regret, but I will teach you to repent!...'

"The next second I heard a report. George and I broke in the door. She had shot him through the left arm. I am afraid, P. C., that you have never seen her look as beautiful as I have.

"What more can I say? The next day the affair was in the papers. I hoped it would be an advertisement for the 'Grand-duke's hotel.' It would perhaps have been one for a bigger place or one that had been better known. As it was, it finished my business. Three months later I was ruined. You may believe me, P. C., that my wish to be revenged on that scoundrel is as strong as yours."

"And Mitzi?" I ask.

"Mitzi was arrested. But after three days, as the gentleman had left the country, she was restored to liberty. He had gone away with all their luggage, and she possessed nothing except a few jewels, which she pawned. The proceeds did not suffice to pay her journey home, not to speak of her bill, for she had remained several weeks in Paris, hoping to find an engagement, a hope in which she failed. Finally I had to give her a few francs in order to help her to return to her country."

There, Mr. Reader, is what Charles Young tells me. It leads you exactly to the point—namely, Mitzi's coming home—where I had left you.

Now, this is not all I have to report of yesterday's memorable evening. I am sure you wish to know all about the night expedition of your four friends. You shall have what you want.

There is to the north-east of our trench a little wood. The colonel wanted to know what was in that wood, whether it was fortified and how. Our aeroplanes had been unable to give any information, nor had our listening posts achieved any result. So there was but one way: by scouting.

Well, as soon as night had come we crawled out of our trench, armed to the teeth, and after an hour's crawling we reached the edge of the forest. To say that it was an easy job would be an unnecessary exaggeration, for there were German search-lights unceasingly licking the ground. Yet there was always time when we saw the lights creeping nearer, to lie still for an instant and to pretend that we were corpses.

"Can't you see," said Pringle once quite aloud, as the ray was just resting on his body, "that I'm dead? What's the use of your lights having glasses?"

Charlie began to laugh, so that if the beam by any chance had touched him, he would certainly have been detected.

"Mind you," said I, "the blooming thing is wavering."

"La donna È mobile," sang Charlie softly and added: "It's Hun-steady."

"Shut up, Sergeant," said Pringle, "it's foolish to joke now."

"Hun-reasonable, you mean. Let's go on."

"The ray is still too near," warned Guncotton. "It is premature to move."

"Hun-timely?" corrected Charley. "Perhaps; well, we have plenty of time."

"Oh Sergeant, don't be cruel!"

"Do you really think me Hun-merciful? It seems that my puns are Hun-successful...."

And so it went on for a time, while we lay motionless under the rays of the search-light. Yet the Sergeant did not cease thinking of anything else than words beginning with an optional Hun.

But when we were inside the wood our real business began. It consisted in reaching a certain spot where in all probability a small detachment of Germans was posted, for it was a naturally sheltered part. Should no Germans be there, then we were to come back and if possible our troops were to occupy it during the same night.

We had been walking silently when the Sergeant suddenly stopped.

"They are here," he whispered.

"What are we to do?" I inquired.

"We have orders in case of no Germans are there," said Guncotton. "But if there are some?"

"I think it's clear," declared the Sergeant. "Either kill them, or take them prisoners."

From a spot at a distance of about a hundred yards there came the buzzing murmur of many voices, conversing probably in a peaceful manner.

"They are too many to kill," said Guncotton.

"But not to take prisoners."

And Charlie at once invented a plan of attack.

Accordingly we began talking gently at first, then louder and louder, until we shouted all four for all we were worth. Finally Charlie in his strongest voice gave some orders, which Pringle repeated different times, sometimes at a higher pitch, sometimes at a lower, and always a little fainter. He is a ventriloquist, you know. While he was doing this, Charlie and I rushed forwards on to the Germans who were in the greatest disorder, having been taken entirely by surprise.

"Surrender," cried we both.

There were two German officers who advanced. We explained to them that as we were eight hundred they had better give in. All this time Pringle was going on with his orders, given in ever so many voices, which seemed to come from different directions. And suddenly Guncotton produced his will-o-the-wisp trick, which completed the illusion. He was causing lights to appear to the right and the left, so that our Germans (they were forty) seemed entirely surrounded.

The success was complete, and an hour later we were bringing in our bag of officers and men. Only ... by some sort of a miracle the men's figures had grown. They were ninety now.

"This time I have got my commission," said Charlie to me as we entered our trenches.

But somehow, in our excitement, instead of returning to our own quarters, we had taken a wrong direction, and we arrived at a part distant from ours by more than two miles. Still, you may imagine, whether we were well received.

The colonel on duty congratulated us and asked for our names. To my utter surprise Charlie gave his as ... Friedrich Wilhelm Young.

As we marched away through the communication trenches, cheery and mirthful, I asked Charlie why he had given this name.

"I did not," he said.

"You did."

"Never."

"You did," asserted Pringle and Cotton.

"You are spinning me a yarn."

"We are not," we declared unanimously, "you gave your name as Friedrich Wilhelm Young."

He remained silent, absolutely cast down. Never have I seen a man so overcome as poor Charlie was that minute. At last he said:

"Well, that's done it. I must have been too excited. Farewell, my commission! We'll drink that bottle of champagne to-morrow."

And we shall. At last!

Once more I open these sheets, which I have had to neglect for four full mouths. And you will be surprised, my dear friends, who have escorted me to Austria and France, to hear that I am no longer writing this in the trenches, but in Belsize Park.

I suppose I must tell you all. Following Major Young's advice, I will begin by the beginning. In fact, I have already begun by informing you in one single word that Charlie—he will always remain Charlie for me—has at last met with success. Bad luck evidently ceased to exist from the moment when we emptied that bottle of champagne. On being questioned about his real name he made a clear breast of the whole story of his identity; and thus, what had not brought Sergeant Charles Young a commission, has finally brought Captain Friedrich Wilhelm Young a promotion.

That occurred on the last day of June. On the first of July, 1916, the great attack began. I am not going to describe that big affair. It has provided so much copy to professional writers that a poor amateur like me has no more chance. But how we rushed out of the trenches! Poor Cotton—on that very morning, an hour before the action began, he had received news from the Royal Society of Chemists that they were to publish his treatise at their expense, and he had said to me with an elated expression:

"Now I can die calmly: I know that I will not die altogether."

Poor Cotton was perhaps the first to be killed.

As for me I find it absolutely impossible to tell you what I did. You know that feeling: When you wake up in the morning you remember sometimes that you have been dreaming, but cannot recall the slightest detail. It even happens that while asleep you intend to remember a certain detail of your dream; yet, in the morning it is clean forgotten.

I cannot say how long I remained in that fight, two, four, six hours, or more perhaps. The only thing I recollect is a feeling of infinite comfort when I woke up, and how it gave way instantly to an unbearable agony in my right foot. I was lying in a bed, and the bed was in a large tent with many others. Dazed as I was, I realized that I must have been wounded, but I felt too tired to think, or even to keep my eyes open.

A soft hand stroked my brow lightly and a gentle voice said a few words. I opened my eyes again. A nurse was standing there, with two surgeons. They uncovered me and undid the bandage which was hiding my foot. Then one of the men said to me:

"You are a courageous man. You will not be afraid of a little operation?"

"It can't hurt more than it does now.'

"It won't hurt at all."

"Then go ahead, sir, what is it?"

"Nothing much. We think, my friend and I, that you have one foot too many."

I reflected one moment. This was rather unpleasant. But what could I do but put a cheerful face on an ugly matter? So I said:

"Right you are, but don't make a mistake."

"What d'you mean?" asked the surgeon.

"You might cut off the sound foot, by mistake."

"All right," said he smiling. "That's the spirit we want. We will do it in a couple of hours. Try to sleep in the meantime."

The next time you have an opportunity, Mr. Reader, you make an effort to sleep with such a prospect before you. A cripple; I would be a cripple. What would life be in future? It is not such a very easy thing to stand on two feet, but on one! You must be a virtuoso for that ... or an acrobat. Anyhow I would be out of the ghastly business. For I may tell it now, it was hellish, altogether.

But at last, it was over for me. I had done my bit.—Done my bit—Done my bit.—And I repeated twenty, fifty, a hundred times that "Done my bit" like an engine that says the same thing unceasingly. Yes, I would go home, back to Blighty. Done my bit.—Done my bit.—What would dad say? Poor dad! He would feel it more than I. He would tremble when he saw my name in the casualty list. And he would cry and be proud that I had done my bit.—Done my bit.—Done my bit.—And then he would buy an artificial foot for me, the best he could find. In fact he did, and I am not so much to be pitied as you may think. Really not. And the mater ... she would scold me, no doubt. In fact, she did it too:

"My poor Patrick," was her first word, "how can one be such an awkward bungler? What did you do with your foot?"

"I apologize, mother," I answered, "I have mislaid it. I must have left it in France. Do you want me to go back and fetch it?"

Thus, you see, I could not sleep during these two hours, as I had been told to.

Suddenly, as I was lying there, I heard a voice, a very faint voice to my right, calling me:

"Mr. Cooper!"

Slowly I turned my head. I could not turn anything else. And there, by my side, lay pallid, cadaverous, Franz von Heidenbrunn.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"I?—I am dying."

A pause.

"But how did you come here? Why are you not on the Austrian front?"

Very slowly the answer came:

"I became a deserter, when I eloped with Mitzi. I never returned to Austria. I served with the Germans."

He was very weak, I could hardly hear his words. And I, too, felt so feeble that I was scarcely able to speak.

After a while he began again:

"You know that old Hammer died?"

"Poor Hammer," I said. "And Doblana?"

"I don't know."

There was another silence. How exhausted he looked! And I had sworn that I would avenge myself on him.

"Giulay is married," he whispered.

Evidently he wanted to speak about my Viennese acquaintances. But what could it matter to me whether Giulay was married? Was it to Fanny? I wondered. The answer to my mute question came soon.

"To Mitzi."

Giulay and Mitzi! So they had both been satisfied with remnants ... he with what Franz, and she with what Fanny had left. Such was the end of my Austrian Love.

Again there was a silence. Longer, deeper than before. His breath was difficult, already rattling in his throat. But after a while he seemed once more to find a little strength.

"Can't you forgive me?" he asked at last.

"I do forgive you, with all my heart."

He became calm, and it seemed to me as if a dim smile was passing over his features.

He died the same night.

Three or four weeks went by. I was doing splendidly, as people say whose feet have not been amputated. I had been removed to another tent where there were only men who had behaved well, like me for instance, and who could be allowed to read, to smoke, to chat. Don't you believe that it was a sorry company. There was not one complete specimen of the species man. But we bore our lot cheerfully.

To say the truth I had not, for years, felt so pleased, so satisfied. The nightmare was over. When I recollected the years between my flight from Vienna until the outbreak of the war, and then the terrible months in Gallipoli and in France, I regarded my present situation as perfect bliss. Perhaps also had I freed myself, by writing my story, from the ever torturing memory of her, whom I have called my Austrian Love. For the first time Life was smiling again.... Life and Music. I may as well tell you that since I have returned home I have begun writing a symphonic poem. I hope you will come one day and applaud it. I found its themes while I was in that cheerful hospital. I found something else, too.

You know, of course, that in the hospitals kind people are always providing poor devils like me with all sorts of entertainments. If there was a proof necessary to show that music is not only an expensive noise, (what of a bombardment, then?) you have only to make inquiries about the number of concerts given to the wounded. Singers, pianists, violinists, unknown and famous, come to brighten our time of convalescence.

Such a party, one day, visited our hospital. The names were not celebrated ones, but we did not mind. The renowned artists were not always those we liked best.

There was first a man who played the violin. I remember it was Godard's Berceuse de Jocelyn. Then a baritone, who sang popular ballads. He had a beautiful voice and I should have liked to see his face. But I was still in bed and not allowed to move; and from where I was I could only hear, but not see the performers.

And then the piano attacked sounds familiar to me. And a feminine voice began:

"My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here...."

Good God! What was that?

Mitzi?

Had her voice changed so much? Had she used her Italianized name to sneak into this country? She alone knew that song.... And yet....

I tried to sit up, in spite of the doctor's orders. But a nurse, who, as I discovered later on, had special instructions, noticed me and came nearer.

"You are not to move, you know," she said smiling.

"Oh let me!" I begged.

"No, no, no!"

The song was over and the men applauded.

All of them, except one, Patrick Cooper.

And the voice began again:

"Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land!..."

That could not be Mitzi!... she had always been unable to sing that song.

"Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,

From wandering on a foreign strand!..."

The voice seemed to come nearer.—Yes! the singer had left the platform....

"If such there breathe, go, mark him well...."

Now she appeared.

"Bean!" I cried.

And we are to be married to-morrow.