“Wonderfully good. He seems to be living in mud and water all the time. It makes one shiver to think of it this weather. But he says he’s keeping very well so far, in spite of it all.” “It’s amazing to me how they stand it. One of our men was telling me---- Here he is!”--as the peremptory hoot of a motor was heard in the road, and she dashed out just in time to see a long gray car, driven by a man in khaki, and bearing O.H.M.S. in big red letters on its wind-screen, sweep up the Oakdene drive. It had come the other way, down the road, and so had missed the notice on the gate. She was just about to rush after it when it came scudding back down the drive, backed up the road towards the station, and then leaped forward, missed the gate-post by half an inch and came whirling up to the door, and she saw Con’s face looking out from under the hood. “Oh, my dear! How thankful I am to see you again!” she cried ecstatically, and wrenched open the door. A lean-faced young man, with bright eyes and a quiet face, had got out at the other side and come quickly round to assist. He gave his arm to Con and helped him out, and Con put both his arms on Alma’s shoulders and kissed her warmly again and again. His face showed something of what he had gone through. It was thinner and older looking. There were none of the old laughter-creases in it. Instead--a soberness--almost sombreness--as of one still haunted by the shock of untellable things, and in his once-merry eyes memories of honors and a curious almost imperceptible sense of doubt and recoil. It was very slight, but Alma’s eager eyes, as she took him all in at a glance, discerned it in a moment as something quite new in him. And as his arms rested on her shoulders she was conscious of a strange lack in the feel of them. His hands should have clasped her to him. Her whole being should have leaped to the thrilling touch of them as their two beings came into contact once more. But these things were lacking. His arms indeed lay on her shoulders, and it was good to feel them there again. He had not had time to take off his gloves, but one can clasp one’s wife to one’s heart even with gloves on, though it was not like Con to do so. But there was something more than that,--something undefinable, something in the unresponsiveness of the arms on her shoulders akin to that other new something in him, of which her first quick glance had apprised her, and a throb of fear tapped at her heart. Con lifted his arms from her shoulders and turned to the khaki-clad chauffeur. “You’ll have time for a cup of tea and a bite of something to eat before you go back?” he asked quietly, and the man saluted and intimated his readiness, and then Con and Alma went up to the others who stood waiting in the doorway. He kissed his mother warmly, and Lois, and Vic, and Auntie Mitt, and introduced the lean-faced young man who was lagging quietly behind.