Then it was that the probable reason for all this depression flashed upon me. Then it was, in that moment, that I remembered that apple-paring, Joan's adorable little schoolgirl's outbreak, and her tucking away of that piece of paper into her breast. Philip Esdaile was thirty-nine, young Smith twenty-four; that is a difference of fifteen years; but a young man of twenty-four could be quite devoted to Methuselah himself if there was a young woman anywhere about. Those frequent calls after that meeting in Coventry Street simply meant that Philip's leg had been pulled. Chummy Smith was no doubt very fond of Philip, but he was even fonder of Philip's wife's help and companion. And Joan had seen the crash. No wonder Philip thanked God that she didn't know who it was she had seen come down. VI I know now the exact point up to which I was right, and also where I ceased to be right. Mollie Esdaile made a clean breast of the whole guileful conspiracy of their courtship afterwards. Here it is, for your edification and warning. Mollie had several times been down to visit Philip in his billet at the Helmsea Station. There it was that she had first seen Chummy. At first she had not been able to single out Chummy from the rest of the uniformed mob that led such a mysterious existence down there--a world of womenless men, who paraded at all hours of the day and night, suddenly vanished by the half week together, turned up smiling again, danced with one another to the grinding of gramophones, played cards and snooker, howled round pianos and swapped yarns, Kirchners and pink gins. To Mollie their uniforms were of two kinds only, khaki and dark blue. In course of time she had come to pick out Chummy as wearing both--khaki, but with the rings and shoulder-badges of the other Service. The lad made Philip ask him to tea, and the next time, in Philip's absence, Chummy had asked her to tea. And so to the sky-blue uniforms and the monochrome of mufti again, by which time Chummy and Mollie were firm friends. I believe she threw the youngsters together from the moment Philip first brought Chummy home to Lennox Street. She says she didn't, and refers me to Joan. I wouldn't hang a dog on what Miss Joan says on such a matter.