"I'm sure," she said, "you're a very good man. . . ." She did not try to keep the tears out of her eyes, remembering his words: "Up in the cold camp," . . . "I'm glad the captain, as you call him, did not leave you in the cold camp. . . . You're devoted to him, aren't you? . . . There are others he does leave . . . up in . . . the cold camp. . . . For punishment, you know. . . ." The ex-sergeant-major, the tears in his eyes too, said: "Well, there _is_ men you 'as to give the C.B. to. . . . C.B. means confined to barracks. . . ." "Oh, there are!" she exclaimed. "There are! . . . And women, too. . . . Surely there are women, too? . . ." The sergeant-major said: "Wacks, per'aps. . . . I don't know. . . . They say women's discipline is much like ours. . . . Founded on hours!" She said: "Do you know what they used to say of the captain? . . ." She said to herself: "I pray to God the stiff, fatuous beast likes sitting here listening to this stuff. . . . Blessed Virgin, mother of God, make him take me. . . . Before midnight. Before eleven. ... As soon as we get rid of this . . . No, he's a decent little man. . . . Blessed Virgin!" . . . "Do you know what they used to say of the captain? ... I heard the warmest banker in England say it of him. . . ." The sergeant-major, his eyes enormously opened, said: "Did you know the warmest banker in England? . . . But there, we always knew the captain was well connected. . . ." She went on: "They said of him. . . . He was always helping people." . . . "Holy Mary, mother of God! . . . He's my _husband_. . . . It's not a sin. . . . Before midnight . . . Oh, give me a sign. . . . Or before . . . the termination of hostilities. . . . If you give me a sign I could wait." . . . "He helped virtuous Scotch students, and broken-down gentry. . . . And women taken in adultery. . . . All of them. . . . Like . . . You know Who. . . . That is his model. . . ." She said to herself: "Curse him! . . . I hope he likes it. . . . You'd think the only thing he thinks about is the beastly duck he's wolfing down." . . . And then aloud: "They used to say: 'He saved others; himself he could not save. . . .'" The ex-sergeant-major looked at her gravely: "Ma'am," he said, "we couldn't say exactly that of the captain. . . . For I fancy it was said of our Redeemer. . . . But we _'ave_ said that if ever there was a poor bloke the captain could 'elp, 'elp 'im 'e would. . . . Yet the unit was always getting 'ellish strafe from headquarters. . . ." Suddenly Sylvia began to laugh. . . . As she began to laugh she had remembered . . . The alabaster image in the nun's chapel at Birkenhead the vision of which had just presented itself to her, had been the recumbent tomb of an honourable Mrs. Tremayne-Warlock. . . . She was said to have sinned in her youth . . . And her husband had never forgiven her. . . . That was what the nuns said. . . . She said aloud: