He shut his eyes tightly and stumbled back to bed. He bruised himself against a chair, but he was afraid to open his eyes, and he rolled into bed, covering himself completely with the clothes, and buried his face in his folded arms. In his mind, one thought hammered insistently: _I must live! I must live! I must live!_ 8 "I'm run down," he said to himself in the morning. "That's what's the matter with me. I'm run down!" His father's death had affected him, he thought, far more than he had imagined. He would be all right again after a rest in Devonshire. It was natural that he should be in a nervous state ... quite natural. He would go straight to Boveyhayne from Liverpool. He could catch the Bournemouth Express, and change at Templecombe. ... "That's what I'll do," he said, and he hurried downstairs to prepare for his journey. THE SEVENTH CHAPTER 1 He changed his mind at Liverpool. "I'll go to London first," he said, "and see Roger and Rachel. I might as well hear anything there is to hear!" And so he had telegraphed to Roger who met him at Euston. "Gilbert's going out in a few days," Roger said, when they had greeted each other. "Out?" "Yes. He's going to the Dardanelles!... This job's serious, Quinny!" he added grimly. "Our two months' estimate was a bit out, wasn't it? I suppose you haven't heard from Ninian lately? He hasn't written to me for a good while." "Not lately," Henry answered, "but I shall hear of him to-morrow when I get to Boveyhayne. I'll write and let you know!" "My Big Army book's gone to pot, of course!" Roger went on. "At present anyhow!..." "The War's done for the Improved Tories, I suppose?" "Absolutely. They've all enlisted. Ashley Earls is in the R.A.M.C. He went in last week. He couldn't go before ... he was ill. You remember Ernest Carr. He tried to enlist when the War began, but he was so crippled with rheumatism that they hoofed him out. Well, he's been living like a hermit ever since to get himself cured, and he says he's going on splendidly. He thinks he'll be able to join before long...."