"Yes, but he never opened his mouth 'cept once, and then he only said something about selling a farm and going to sea, and Georgie thinks he hates her." Cornelius James pondered over this insight into the enigma of the feminine heart. "She's an ass!" was his final comment. "And what about Miss Mayne? Don't tell me she's in love!" Assuredly the queen could do no wrong nor stoop to such folly. "I don't know," replied Jane, "but last night I went to her room to borrow a ribbon to tie my hair up with 'cos I'd lost mine, an' she was lying on her bed with her face in her hands. I thought she had a headache, and I was going out again when she jumped up. Her face was all smeary and her eyes were red, like when her brother was killed. 'Member? I per-tended I didn't notice anything, and asked for the ribbon and she got it from a drawer and gave it to me without a word, and suddenly she sat down on the window seat and put her arms round me and held me against her so tight I could hardly breathe." The mystified eyes of the brother and sister met. "But didn't she _say_ anything?" demanded the former. "Has anybody been killed she's fond of?" "I don't think so," replied Jane; "she hardly said anything. Just whispered little soft words like 'darling.'" "She did that when we tried to cheer her up 'cos her brother died," said the boy, as if condoning a lapse on Miss Mayne's part. "Oh, there was one thing," added Jane after reflection; "she said, 'Oh, Janie, Janie, don't grow up!'" Which left Cornelius James not much the wiser. To a more sophisticated mind the utterance might have meant much or little. For my part I look for my clue to the riddle in a later remark Miss Mayne made aloud to the darkness, from off a crumpled tear-wet pillow. "He never said he loved me," she pleaded. The darkness held no answer. PART TWO THE NARRATIVE OF COMMANDER WILLIAM DALRYMPLE HORNBY, ROYAL NAVY 1 The ship was doing her annual refit at a Dockyard Port in the south, and the Captain and I shared what leave there was going; in my case it amounted to eight days, and I spent them trout fishing in Breconshire. I have tried a good many experiments in the way of how to make the most of a week's leave, and I have come to the conclusion that few things take the taste of war out of a man's mouth as effectively as whipping a "mountainy" trout stream. It was a long and tedious railway journey back; I suppose I am as fond of my ship as most Commanders: she probably means more to me than a ship does to a man with a wife and bairn of his own, but I can't say I looked forward to slipping into harness again after the week's freedom from routine and responsibility, and the contemplation of returning to another nine months' exile in the North Sea didn't add any gaiety to the train journey. I was uncommonly glad, therefore, when I changed at Bristol and walked into Frank Milsom on the platform.