“No, Reggie, I can’t come this time. Go to Mürren, and when you come back, perhaps... well, we’ll see.” Elizabeth made toast and tea, and they sat on a large low divan in front of the fire. The dingy light soon faded from the soiled London sky, but they sat on in the firelight, holding hands. She let Reggie kiss her as much as he wanted, but for the time being resisted any further encroachments. * * * * * Elizabeth’s resistance, at that precise moment, to the advances of Mr. Reginald Burnside, seems to me a striking example of George’s infelicity. I mean that I see a direct link between it and the sudden inexplicable standing up of a man in khaki, before a murderous machine gun fire, not long after dawn, on the morning of the 4th of November, 1918.... Not that I wish melodramatically “to set the brand of Cain” upon Elizabeth or upon Fanny or upon both jointly. Far from it. _They_ didn’t make the war. _They_ didn’t give George the jumps. And after all there is a doubt, almost a mystery involved in George’s death. Did he really commit suicide? I don’t know. I’ve only got circumstantial evidence and my own hunch about it, a sort of intuition, a something haunting in my memory of the man, an Orestes-like feeling of some inexpiated guilt. Who is to say whether a man can really commit suicide on a battlefield? Desperate recklessness and looking for trouble may be the very means of his escaping the death which finds the prudent coward crouching in a shell-hole. And suppose he did deliberately get himself killed, ought we, ought I, to attach any blame to Elizabeth and Fanny? I don’t think so. There were plenty of other things to disgust him with life. And even supposing that he realized the war was ending, realized that in his state of mind he simply could not face the problem of his relation with those two women, still I think them utterly blameless. The mess was as much his fault as theirs. It was really quite an easy mess to clear up. What made it impossible was George’s shattered nerves, and for that they were not to blame. Oh, not in the least. Perhaps I’m as much to blame as anybody. I ought to have done something to get George sent out of the line. I think I might have gone to the Brigadier and have told him in private what I knew about George’s state of mind—or perhaps to his Colonel. But I didn’t go. At that time I was not persona grata with those in authority, for I happened to sympathize then with the young Russian Revolution, and had foolishly argued hotly about it. So perhaps my effort would have been wasted. And anyhow it was a very difficult and ticklish thing to do, and I was tired, very tired....