Cummings stood still for a moment, obviously discomforted, his face brick-red from the rare effort of wrestling with unaccustomed thoughts. Then he ran on lightly for a yard or two, and joined his companion. "Rotten luck, the whole thing," he said good-naturedly. "Let’s stop at the inn at Bruchill, and drink the poor little chap’s health as we pass, eh? I’m sick to death of all this arguing." Brand raised his eyebrows. His face was livid, except where an angry smear of red had broken out below the cheek-bone. "Oh—were you arguing?" he asked. *CHAPTER II* "Suffering of body and soul is civil war."—MAUD STEPNEY RAWSON. Thrown upon his own resources practically from four years old, Richard Farquharson at ten was older than many boys of his age. His memories grouped themselves into scenes, one was his nightmare. That dreadful day! Did he really remember it, I wonder, or was it merely a mental landmark in that valley of vision to which his old nurse had taught him the way of escape from the harshness and austerities of his life at Glune? He thought of it sometimes with that strange sort of pride which very sensitive children, and children of a larger growth who have gone forward in spite of inward shrinking, feel when recalling at a safe distance an experience which at the time had strained their courage to breaking-point. A raw, cold day, the first of days which were all raw and cold; a line of dark shadows clustered together in the gloomy hall, forming an impenetrable circle about one central shadow deeper than the rest, across which heavy drapery, a pall, was thrown. Upon this unknown object the look of all was fixed; child as he was Richard shrank back from it. He longed and feared to know what was beneath. And presently strangers appeared, six figures, which formed into a rigid line led by one familiar shape, which for the first time struck terror into his heart—his mother. The circle broke, pierced by strangers; there was a dreadful grating sound as the men bent beneath the weight of a heavy burden. Then all filed out, and Richard, a tiny child, was left forgotten, in a silence that frightened him so that he could not cry out nor move, a paralyzing silence that clutched him with ghostly fingers and strengthened its grip as the massive door clanged against him with an echo that mocked the four-year-old child, left alone in a place where dishonoured Death had just held revel.