Rather than damping my ardour, this warning merely added fuel to the flames of my desires. In early life I had been most bitterly disappointed. A somewhat sensitive nature had received a shock from which it never properly recovered. With the fatuity of early youth I had placed a whole family upon an idealistic pedestal--including a mere child of thirteen years of age. When that theoristic fabric fell, shattered to a million invisible fragments, at my feet, I could not understand, but I felt for years afterwards that life for me held nothing of worth. Time heals wounds, and I survived in bodily health. In 1912 I lost a man's best friend on earth--my mother. At Christmas, 1913, my father, my dearest pal, followed her to the grave. I was unmarried. My brother and my sisters had homes of their own, far away. What mattered it to anyone, least of all to myself, if I crossed the Great Divide before my allotted time? I was at best a mere worthless atom of humanity dependent upon no one, with no one dependent upon me. Here at least was a chance of doing something worth the while. 'Twas a far, far better thing to do than I had ever done. Yea, indeed. I was ready, and willing, and eager, for the service, whatsoever that service might be, and withersoever it might take me, even to the jaws of death itself. Having regard to all the circumstances, I do not believe I shall be accused of presumptuousness or of egotism if I say that I fully believed myself to be a fit and qualified person for the service for which I then had volunteered. On October 17th, 1914, I received a letter from the Under Permanent Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Sir Arthur Nicholson--now Lord Carnock), acknowledging my letter of the previous day's date and saying Sir Edward Grey appreciated my offer, although he regretted there were no such appointments at the disposal of his department; but he added that my name had been noted in case my services might be utilised in any capacity at some further date.