Bethune saw the girl’s fingers unconsciously practising musical exercises on the ledge of the pew; when their eyes met once, she made a childish grimace. She, for one, was frankly bored. As for him, had he any faith? He had hardly ever thought even of putting the question. He went to the Church service of his country as a matter of course, as his grandfathers had done before him. It was part of the etiquette of his military life. Now and again he had been moved to a solemn stir of the feelings during some brief soldier’s ceremony: the hurried funeral perhaps of an English lad far away from homeland. But so had he been moved by the bugle-call, by the hurrah on the field. Life and death, love and religion, what did they mean? What are we, when all is said and done, but the toys of a blind fate? There is but one thing sure in the uncertainty, he told himself, but one staff in the wilderness, one anchor in the turmoil—duty. The damp-stained wall at his side was starred with memorials. He began to contemplate them, idly at first, then with an enkindling interest. Here was an old stone slab commemorating, in half-obliterated words, some son of a Dorset house who had died for the country in far Peninsular days. "In the twentieth year of his age." A young existence, to be thus cut short! Yet, had he lived, and given life, his own sons would now be well-nigh forgotten. Under this was a black marble tablet. The blood rushed to his face as he read, and then ebbed, leaving him cold: To THE MEMORY OF CAPTAIN HENRY ENGLISH, OF HER MAJESTY’S INDIAN STAFF CORPS, KILLED ON SERVICE IN THE PAMIRS. AGED 28. Thus ran the sober inscription; followed the text, more triumphant than sorrowful: He that loseth his life shall find it. And then the words: THIS TABLET WAS ERECTED BY HIS MOTHER.