clad in the uniform of a General. He looked at her for a moment without speech. Then he came into the compartment and closed the door behind him. 'What do you want?' she asked hoarsely. He saluted mechanically. 'I am General Matravers,' he announced. 'May I sit down?' She glanced at the communication cord--it was on the distant side of the carriage. Why she should have been afraid of him she could not tell, yet she felt as though she had never been in such danger in her life as when he took the seat opposite to her. 'I am General Matravers,' he repeated. 'You have heard of me, perhaps?' 'But naturally,' she assented. 'We have all read of your wonderful exploits at Mons.' He moistened his lips with his tongue. His face seemed curiously dried up, his eyes were hard, his features grim and bony. He presented somehow a queer impression of lifelessness. 'Mons!' he muttered ruminatingly. 'You've never been to Hell, have you, young lady?' 'Not yet,' she answered, watching him closely. 'That was the beginning of it,' he went on. 'We need a Dante, young lady, to sing to us of those days, when the winds were driven from the face of the earth by the screeching of the shells and the roar and the clash of the guns, and they seemed to be always nearer.... Every foot of ground was red with blood, the blood of our dear soldiers, and one thought of the people at home.... I know men who lost their reason at Mons.' 'It must have been terrible,' she faltered. He sat opposite to her, nervously opening and closing the interlocked fingers of his hands. 'You know why I am coming home?' he asked abruptly. 'Medals enough here, you see, for a field-marshal, and I am sent home in disgrace.' She murmured something to which he paid no attention whatever. 'I left my two A.D.C.'s at Folkestone,' he went on, 'forbade them to enter the train. They are worried about me. Perhaps they are right. You see, it was at--but we don't mention names--my headquarters last week. It was the night before our advance. You read about that. I won't mention the name of the place. We called it a partial success. But for the thing I am going to tell you, it might have been the turning point of the war. The attack failed--my fault.' 'I read that your division did splendidly,' she remarked. Again he moistened his dry lips. His hands were shaking now by his side; he seemed like a man on the verge of paralysis.