_The end of May!_ It is, then, to the same spot in time that his eyes and heart are directed, as are her own; but with how unimaginable a difference! To him the end of May is to bring release, liberty, return to the “bullet-swept zones,” to the cold veldt, the ambush, and the sniping. Yes, but also to the comradeship after which his soul is lusting. While to _her_! “May is young yet,” she says, forcing her lips into a reassuring smile. “Dr. Roots has twenty-five days in which to keep his word.” His hands cease their restless plucking at the counterpane, and a change passes over his face. Has he divination to read beneath the mask of her smile? she asks herself with a sort of terror. “Twenty-five days!” he repeats softly. “They are a great many; and yet I can fancy their seeming very few.” Her self-command does not go so far as to furnish her with a comment upon this thrilling truism; and the air upon which his next words steal out seems to have been stilled to receive them. “I wonder upon how many of those twenty-five I shall have a sight of you?” “Let us take short views of life, as Sidney Smith bids us,” she answers, involuntarily moving her shoulders, as if to shake off from them a load which, at the moment, seems to press as heavily as did the bursting wallet of his sins upon good Christian’s bowed back. “I will come as often as I can be spared from home.” At that they regard one another steadily, each conveying to the other’s consciousness their knowledge of how much more than appears the phrase carries. “You have naturally _a great deal to do_ just now?” “Yes.” It is not true; but what is the use of explaining that the dull change--dull, except in the one awful main fact of her wifehood--causes little alteration in the outward framework of her life? Again the room seems irksomely still. Is it possible that to two pairs of ears even the swish of Miss Prince’s skirts would be welcome? In one respect Lavinia might meet that lady with a clear conscience, since she has undoubtedly obeyed her behest of allowing the wounded man to choose his own topic; but it can hardly be said _to_ have agreed with him, judging by the grey shadows on his face. Yet he will not leave the theme that has brought them there. “It is to be on the 28th?” “Yes.” He has leant back on the pillows, which are propped into a more convalescent slant than on the day when she had first seen him lying flat and bloodless upon them. Yet he has reusurped the privilege granted to those _in extremis_; and she grows restless under the insistence of his eyes. “I should like to give you a present.” “Oh, why should you?” There is no mistaking her start, and the pain and dissent in her tone. “You had rather that I did not?” “Much rather.” CHAPTER XIII “No bad news, I hope?” “None, thanks.”