"Sir Robert Doyle, if you're going to be beastly, you can go to your horrid old club, and I only hope you'll be worried to death. Of course it isn't that. Besides, he says everyone is very friendly and welcomes him--only he feels that that makes it worse. He thinks they don't want--well, what he has to give, I suppose." "What he has to give? But what in the world has he to give? He has to take parade services, and visit hospitals and" (he was just going to say "bury the dead," but thought it hardly sounded pleasant), "make himself generally decent and useful, I suppose. That's what chaplains did when I was a subaltern, and jolly decent fellows they usually were." "Well, I know. That's what I should feel, and that's what I don't quite understand. I suppose he feels he's responsible for making the men religious--it reads like that. But you shall hear the letter yourself." Doyle digested this for a while in silence. Then he gave a sort of snort, which is inimitable, but always accompanied his outbursts against things slightly more recent than the sixties. It had the effect of rousing Hilda, at any rate. "Don't, you dear old thing," she said, clutching his arm. "I know exactly what you're going to say. Young men of your day minded their business and did their duty, and didn't theorise so much. Very likely. But, you see, our young men had the misfortune to be born a little later than you. And they can't help it." She sighed a little. "It _is_ trying sometimes.... But they're all right really, and they'll come back to things." They were at the gate by now. Sir Robert stood aside to let her pass. "I know, dear," he said, "I'm an old fogey. Besides, young Graham has good stuff in him--I always said so. But if he's on the tack of trying to stick his fingers into people's souls, he's made a mistake in going to France. I know Tommy--or I did know him. (The Lord alone knows what's in the Army these days.) He doesn't want that sort of thing. He swears and he grouses and he drinks, but he respects God Almighty more than you'd think, and he serves his Queen--I mean his King. A parade service is a parade, and it's a bore at times, but it's discipline, and it helps in the end. Like that little 'do' to-night, it helps. One comes away feelin' one can stand a bit more for the sake of the decent, clean things of life." Hilda regarded the fine, straight old man for a second as they stood, on the top of the steps. Then her eyes grew a little misty. "God bless you, Uncle Bob," she said. "You _do_ understand." And the two went in together.