When they were alone the husband turned to his young wife with an air of pride. "What do you think of my pal?" he asked, with an air of proprietorship. "G'wan," said Emily disdainfully; "'e ain't your pal." "He is, too." "'E ain't!" She tossed her head. "Don't I know one when I sees one; me, the daughter of a footman in Lady Swankbourne's? 'E your pal! 'E blooming well ain't--'e's a _gentleman_!" Far up the street Montague was striding towards his home, wondering if any one had seen him with the Wallers, or had heard the garrulous little cockney call him pard. Good heavens! what would his friends say; or, for that matter, how could he face Sylvester if he had been seen by that polite scion of servitude? "But I'll see it through," he muttered savagely, biting his lip, "if only to prove that the under-dog, like all other dogs, is a thing without a soul!" VIII It was early in November about eighteen months later that Vera Dalton, returning from her self-imposed task at a Military Convalescent Home, found a letter awaiting her which bore the heading that will cast its unique spell over us and our children for generations to come--"Somewhere in France." Sorrow had come into her home, as it had into so many hundreds of others, but it had mellowed, not marred her womanliness. Into the vortex of the nations she had seen the young men of Canada flinging themselves with laughing voices and sturdy courage. With the other women of the city she had watched the endless stream of youth as though, across the seas, some Hamelin Piper were playing an irresistible, compelling melody.... And still the cry was for more--more sons, more brothers, more fathers! Month after month the ceaseless crusade went on--month after month new battalions sprang into being, trained a short time, and then made for the sea.... Always the sea, waiting with its foaming restlessness to carry its human cargo to the slaughter. The sea ... the sea.... It became the symbol of sacrifice to her. Across its turbulent expanse, youth was forfeiting its life for the blindness of the past. The hungry fire of war was being fed with human hearts.... But such is the nature of fire that what lives through it is imperishable. A year ago Montague had gone with his battalion--without even a good-bye. She had never heard of him, but the ordeal of the flames had left him stripped of his artificiality as a tree stricken by a sudden frost is robbed in a moment of its foliage. It is not only the best in men that lives through war--vile passions vie with courage and great sacrifice.... But artificial things succumb and crumple with the scorching heat, and are blown into space by the breath of passions, base or noble--it matters not--they are _real_. With trembling hands she opened the letter. "SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE.