pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow ...

cleanse the stuffed bosom of the perilous stuff

that weighs upon the heart.

macbeth.

not so very many miles from rochehaut, in an empty loft, denis was studying a map spread out on a packing-case. on the other side of their table wandesforde sat writing a letter on his knee. partly by good luck, and partly because wandesforde was an expert in the art later known as wangling things, they had contrived to keep together almost from the first; at present they were in the same squadron, and sharing the same billet, much to denis's advantage. for wandesforde, wherever he was, on the principle of the conservation of energy, drove at making himself comfortable. he used to say that denis would have put up in a pigsty without troubling to turn out the pig. two months of war had made them more intimate than five years at bredon.

"and that's that," said wandesforde, licking the flap of his envelope. he got up and stretched himself. "ho! i'm tired. i think i shall turn in. four-thirty to-morrow, isn't it? ungodly hour to rout you out on a chilly morning!"

"been writin' home?" asked denis without looking up.

"yes. haven't you?"

"haven't any one to write to."

"well, i rather wish i hadn't either," said wandesforde. he looked over denis's shoulder. "what are you studying that for?"

"reasons."

"want to make sure whereabouts aix is?"

[pg 259]

"no," said denis. "ever flown over this bit of country?"

wandesforde bent lower to follow his finger on the map. "what's the name of this bloomin' corkscrew? the semois? no, i can't say i have. not much doing that way, is there?"

"not as a rule. but we shall be pretty near it to-morrow."

wandesforde, in the act of lighting one of his big cigars, looked inquiringly at his partner. he knew next to nothing of denis's private affairs, and on principle he never asked, but he was always open to hear. denis lay back with his long legs outstretched.

"i may as well tell you," he said with deliberation, "if my bus comes to grief to-morrow, as i rather expect it may, that's the place i'm goin' to make for."

"you expect your bus to come to grief? been drilling holes in the tank, what?" denis made no reply. "oh, lord! is it one of your rotten presentiments?"

"i was dreamin' of muddy water last night," said denis with a slightly defiant air.

"well, turn that stinking lamp down, then. lord only knows when i shall get the bath fixed, and i've worn these pyjamas a fortnight already, i can't afford to get 'em any blacker," said wandesforde irrelevantly. "have some cake. home-made, best dripping and a bit sad in the middle. specially recommended against presentiments. you won't? you don't know what's good. so you think you're going to glory to-morrow, do you? bet you a fiver you don't."

"done with that. if i lose, i'll not be called on to pay," said denis, with a wintry smile. wandesforde lay back in his comfortable bunk—he had swung himself a hammock made of curtains, and stuffed it with straw—and folded his arms under his head.

"well, all i can suggest is you dream of a filter and square things up that way. i wouldn't like to go out yet. i want to bring down a hun or two first. we shall be doing them in by dozens before we're through. did i tell you i[pg 260] ran into tommy wyatt yesterday? he was very full of a new french dodge for firing a machine gun through the propeller. silly business to get killed when there's so much fun on hand, what? think better of it, old thing."

"i never said i was goin' to get killed. i said my bus would come to grief, which is quite a different thing. it's not likely we shall both of us get back, is it? bombing zeppelin sheds isn't a healthy job. we're safe to get archied; and from aix it's an uncommonly long run home."

"you're in a cheerful mood to-night."

"sorry. what i'm tryin' to drive into your thick head is that if i do have to come down, i shall make for rochehaut."

"of course if you've made up your mind to come down—"

"i've not made up my mind to come down. but i feel like it," said denis obstinately.

"all right, all right. but i can't see how you think you'll ever get the chance of making for rochehaut or whatever you call the place. an internment camp in the fatherland is the common fate." denis again preserved silence. "oh, you and the bus are going to alight in some conveniently uninhabited spot? that the idea?"

"it's possible, isn't it?"

"you feel like it?" suggested wandesforde, with a broad grin.

"yes, i do feel like it. and it'll probably happen. i may be wrong but i never am," retorted denis.

"oh, quite. well, i shouldn't dream of offering advice, because i know you never take it, but i wish to point out that in the hypothetical circumstances i should make for the dutch frontier myself. you'll never get through the lines."

"i don't propose to get through the lines. if instead of scintillatin' with wit you'd ever by any chance allow me to finish what i'm saying, i should have told you before that i want to go to rochehaut because i know the place, and because my cousin lettice is there—if she's still alive."

[pg 261]

"oh ah. yes. i remember."

wandesforde had heard as much as that. he did not dare offer sympathy, because denis's glacial eye was upon him, forbidding it. denis went on with his most intransigent air: "and i may add that if i get the ghost of a chance to go i'm goin', and if i get into a row for it afterwards i do not care. i want you to know this now because, if things fall out as i expect, i shall be very much obliged if you'll see my pal gardiner next time you're home on leave, and tell him."

"the chap that's in prison?"

"yes. sorry to put you to so much inconvenience, but i can't write it, because his letters are read."

"quite. what do you want me to say?"

"tell him i'm goin' to rochehaut to look up lettice. it's more his affair than mine." wandesforde scribbled down the message in his pocket-book. "and tell him—" denis's voice unexpectedly failed.

wandesforde held his pencil ready.

"say i've changed my mind, and i'm goin' to settle up my own affair too, if i'm let. he'll understand."

wandesforde did not, never having heard of dorothea in this connection. he had never known denis make a confidence before. there was a pause; but he still waited. if he knew anything of the signs of the times, more was coming. he was right. the never-ceasing thunder of the guns accompanied and illustrated denis's next speech.

"wandesforde, do you believe in a future life?"

three months earlier, wandesforde would have answered with a shrug. his point of view had changed. "more or less got to out here, haven't you?" he said soberly.

"i didn't—for the best part of this year."

"what, that time you were playing about with the fair evey?"

denis lifted his head. "you knew? well, i suppose you would. it never struck me—"

"everybody knew, old thing," said wandesforde, with an irrepressible grin. he was more touched than he would have[pg 262] cared to admit by denis's rather truculent confidences, but he could not for his life help finding him deuced funny! "and nobody could think what on earth you were after! it was so very much out of your line, and, if you'll forgive my saying so, you made such a shocking poor hand at it!"

"i don't lay claim to your experience," said denis forbiddingly. he attacked his confessions once more. "i had rather a rough time of it last autumn, one way and another. i—it—i—"

"you lost your faith," suggested wandesforde, still grinning. "lord bless you, my dear chap, i know! you left off going to bredon and listening to the little blighter with the mustachios. he came to me about it—funked you, i suppose—and i had to send him off with a flea in his ear. oh, denis, when you go off the rails all the world stands to admire. nobody would make a song about it if i stopped going to church. and then evey byrne appeared on the scenes, and there was a hectic interlude which ended in your both vanishing. you went back to bredon, i know that; but what on earth did you do with her?"

"she went into a convent."

"no! did she really? rum ending to an affair of that kind."

"it was not an affair of that kind."

what an expressive face his was, when he was not on guard! and how it changed at mention of mrs. byrne! wandesforde could not imagine himself taking evey byrne very seriously, but he felt like a bull in a china shop among the reserves and scruples and delicacies of his partner's mind. he was, quite simply, very fond of denis. he disliked serious scenes; in candid truth, he dreaded them; they did not do, when to-morrow you were flying to aix and to-night you had been writing cheerful non-committal letters like that now lying on the table. but it was evident that denis was quite beyond ragging and being ragged. the moment had come, his tongue was loosed, and he must speak. wandesforde touched him gently on the shoulder.

"go ahead, old denis. i'm off rotting."

[pg 263]

denis looked up, and wandesforde to his consternation saw that his eyes were full of tears.

"wandesforde, did you ever hurt a woman—badly?"

"no," said wandesforde. "no, thank the lord! that i never did."

"i have. twice."

"you, denis?"

"oh, not that way. worse, i think. i did the beastliest thing—it was an insult—"

"evey byrne you're talking of?"

"yes. and for all return she—she came and kissed my hand. she said i was too good for her. after what i'd done! she—she loved me, wandesforde. you can't think what it was like. it made me feel so sick—"

he made a long break.

"i saw after that i'd been on the wrong tack. there is a god, and he does direct things."

"yes," assented wandesforde.

"and of course that set me thinkin' of the other again. lettice said i'd been hard on her. i didn't want to be hard—i'd no right to be hard on anybiddy. especially not on another woman. but i didn't see how things could ever be as they were before. i thought about it a lot, but i couldn't get it straight. i am a duffer when it comes to people, you know. all that time, too, i was feeling pretty queer—a bit under the weather; i dare sayb i'd not got over the shock. it wasn't till the war came, till i realized she was out here in all this awful danger, that i might never see her again—"

another long break.

"so now i'm goin' to her, if i'm let; and i think i shall be," denis wound up simply.

wandesforde was aware that he had been no more than a communicating channel between denis and his friend in prison. he did not guess, denis himself did not guess, that but for his interposition this chronicle of the heart, such as it was, would never have been told. denis had tried to put it down on paper, and had not succeeded; still less[pg 264] would he have succeeded by word of mouth. gardiner knew too much, saw too much. wandesforde was a neutral medium. it is often easier to confess to a stranger than to the friend of your bosom.

so wandesforde, feeling shy, and a good deal more uncomfortable than denis himself, put up his pencil and prepared to take counsel with his pillow.

"you're a rum chap, denis," was his conclusion.