"Oh, I have him with me--he is so brave, and pretends he never misses it--ties his own tie and is so proud when he gets it straight--but I know all he's suffering. Sometimes I have seen him looking at the closed piano as if his heart would break." She said no more, and they walked on. Then abruptly John stopped and looked down into her face. "Tilly--you have been married a month--then his--" Her eyes met his and answered him simply. "Oh, you poor brave child!" he cried, his own voice trembling this time. "He needed me so, Scissors--and it makes no difference to me; at least I have him safe now. But for him--" They walked on in silence. At the Marlborough Gate he left her, with a promise to call on his next leave. CHAPTER II I The months slipped, months of peril, of thrills, of human drama and comradeship. On Christmas Day, as they entered Dover Harbour, John looked forward to the leave he had obtained. It had been a dreary, nerve-wracking experience, a life in which monotony gave place to unexpected activity. But the moment they reached the harbour, he was told to report at the Admiral's office, and half an hour later was under orders to proceed to Scapa Flow, the other extremity of Great Britain, there to join H.M.S. Fanfare, of the Grand Fleet. Hastily collecting his things, including a bundle of letters awaiting him, he bade hurried and warm farewells to his shipmates, good fellows all of them, despite the fact that they growled night and day about the Service, knowing well they would be broken-hearted if they had to leave it. On the evening of the same day, he was in the night express to Edinburgh. He had had a few hours in London and had made three calls--first at Mariton Street to deposit clothes and get fresh ones. Here he found Capt. Fisher in a state of high prosperity, as something in the Ordnance Survey Department. He was enjoying the war tremendously and prophesied that it would last another five years. "It has revived British character, sir--the tonic we needed!" he said, blithely indifferent to the holocaust of youth. Miss Simpson, too, at the tea-table showed an indomitable spirit. She had been visiting the dear brave boys in a local hospital, and related with gusto a story told her of a Ghurka soldier who carried eight Germans' heads in a sack, which he had refused to give up. "That's what should happen to all the Germans," she added. "It's very horrible!" said John. Miss Simpson opened wide eyes in surprise.