"Well, there isn’t much more to tell and the end—unless one happens to know how things are over there: how big things seem little, and little things massive—the end seems almost like a grisly joke. "We had got to thinking the French place where we were billeted was as safe as New York. I wasn’t a trained man, I was doing whatever happened to be lying around loose. They called it reconstruction work. Good Lord! My special job, though, just then was driving an ambulance. Well, quite unexpectedly one night the enemy got a line on us from God knows what distance, and they just peppered us. There was a hospital there, too. They must have known that, the fiends, and, for a time, things were mighty ticklish. The boys knew their duty, however, and did it magnificently. Those Canadians were superb; given a moment to catch their breath, they were as steady as steel. By morning the worst was over, the shelling, you know, and they began to bring the boys in; back from the fight, back to where the hospital used to be. Out in the open doctors and nurses were working; the ones who had escaped I never saw such nerve; they just worked over the poor hurt fellows as if nothing had happened. "I was jumping about. There was plenty to do even for an unskilled fellow who could only drive an ambulance. I kept bringing in loads—such loads! And I kept an eye open for the chap from Canada that I knew best of all. "About noon a giant of a fellow who, they said, had fought like a devil all night, came up to me blubbering like a baby. It seems my man had been fighting beside this boy, doing what one might expect, the big thing! The two of them had crawled into a shell-hole and worked from that cover where they were comparatively safe. In a lull—and here comes the grim joke—a poor dog ran in front of them with a piece of barbed wire caught about his haunches. The brute was howling as he ran and my—my chap just went after him, caught him, pulled the wire out, and—keeled over himself. A sniper had done for him! "He wanted me; had sent his comrade to find me. I got there just before the end. "’You’ve heard?’ he asked, and when I nodded he whispered that I was to tell his wife; he knew she would understand. He was quite firm about my telling her, he was like a boy over that, and I promised. He only spoke once again. "’It paid!’ he said, and with that he went over to his rest. "Are you crying, Miss Walden?" "Yes, yes, but oh! how glorious they are, those boys!" "I should not have told you this story." "I thank God you have! And indeed, Mr. Norval it is your sacred duty to tell it to—to that girl in Canada. You promised and she ought to know." [Illustration: "’Indeed, Mr. Norval, it is your sacred duty to tell it to—to that girl in Canada. You promised and she ought to know.’"] "You, a woman, think that? Don’t you think it might be better for her if she didn’t know?"