’I fled Him, down the nights and down the days: I fled Him, down the arches of the years: I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind: and in a mist of tears I hid from Him.’ _Hound of Heaven._ Another fortnight has slipped away. I have had one little note from Ross in which he sent me ’all his love,’ and now, how can I write the news I have to tell? Three days ago (ah, what an eternity it seems) I was ordering the dinner, for I am stronger now, and able to do the usual things. Uncle Jasper and Aunt Constance were due to arrive in time for lunch. Captain Everard was to dine that night, and I had just said to cook, ’Extra good to-night, please, Dulcie, because he is a very special friend of my brother’s’ when the S.P. came into the kitchen with rather a startled look, and said, ’Captain Everard has arrived already, ma’am.’ When I saw his face, I knew. ’It’s Ross,’ I said. ’So soon?’ Yes, directly he got over. He must have been rushed straight up to the trenches. How can I tell you, Mrs Ellsley?’ ’See, I am quite calm,’ I said, ’please, tell me just the truth.’ So he told me the little that he knew, how very early in the morning he had received a telegram, (as Ross in his dear thoughtfulness had wished any such news to go first to him and not to me.) He said that Ross was wounded very desperately, and he had come himself to take me to the coast. ’Can you leave here in half an hour?’ he asked. ’If that is possible you may see him.’ ’Yes,’ I answered. Nannie packed for me, while I got ready. She was very quiet and good, only said, ’My lamb, my lamb, tell him——’ ’I will tell him all your eyes say, darling,’ and I got into the car. I do not remember what happened then. I felt nothing. I was numb. I only knew that kind hands passed me on from car to boat, and then from boat to train, and car again, till I stood at midnight in a little room opposite a sister with a tired face, waiting for her to speak. ’Ah,’ she said, ’you have been very quick; we hardly hoped to be in time to reach you.’ Then she told me that he had been brought in the day before, hopelessly wounded in the body. ’It is a miracle that he has lasted with such appalling wounds; he is only living on his willpower, waiting for you.’ ’Is he in pain?’ I asked. ’At first, yes, agony all the time, but now there are intervals between the bouts of pain, and at the end I think he will not suffer.’ ’But you can keep it down with morphia,’ I said quiveringly. ’We did at first, but he dislikes it so, and now the pain is lessening he has refused to have any more because it clouds his mind. He asked for the chaplain a little while ago,’ she continued. ’Just before he had the Blessed Sacrament he had a bout of pain and I begged him to let me give him morphia. "No, don’t ask me again, sister," he said, and I felt rebuked. But it is not safe to linger—come. I am afraid he may be very exhausted,’ she added as I followed her upstairs.