“Never mind,” I said. “Go on. What else was in the cigarette case? A farewell letter to a loving wife? Love to little Willie and a text of Scripture?” “Not so bad as that. A photo of a girl. He showed it to me when he told me the story.” “Good looking girl?” “Very. Large eyes--sort of tender, you know, and appealing; and a gentle, innocent face, and a mouth----” “I suppose,” I said, “that these raptures are necessary if I’m to understand the story. Otherwise, you may skip them.” “Can’t possibly skip them,” said Daintree. “The whole point of the story depends on your realizing the sort of girl she was. Pathetic--that’s the word I want. Looked at you out of the photo as if she was a poor, lonely, but uncommonly fetching little thing, who wanted a strong, true man to shelter her from the evil world. She was got up in some sort of fancy dress which kind of heightened the effect. I don’t altogether profess to understand what happened, though my wife says she does. But Simcox in a sort of way fell in love with her. That’s not the way he put it. He didn’t feel that she was just an ordinary girl--the sort one falls in love with. She was--well, he didn’t think of her as flesh and blood--more a kind of vision--spiritual, you know.” “Angel?” I said. “That sort of thing. You know. That was the idea that gripped Simcox while he lay there in the shell hole. Stars came out at night and Simcox felt that she was looking down at him. In the day he used to lie and gaze at her. When he thought it was all up with him and that he couldn’t live, he seemed to hear her voice--I say, you ought to hear my wife telling this part of the story. Simcox wouldn’t tell it to me, naturally; but he seems to have enlarged on it a good deal to her. He says that only for that photo he’d have given in and just died. I daresay he wouldn’t really, but he thinks he would. Anyhow, he didn’t. He stuck it out and his leg didn’t hurt nearly as much as he expected. He attributes that to the influence of this--this----” “Angel visitant?” I said. “You can call her an angel if you like,” said Daintree. “This,” I said, “seems to me a pure sob story. If there’s any other part less harrowing, I wish you’d hurry up and get to it.”