It came at a bad time too, for they were working might and main at their preparations for the coming campaign. The Guards had left for Southampton the day before. They themselves were down for service and the call might come any day. War, indeed, had not yet been formally declared, but that was a minor matter. There was no doubt about what was going to happen. So Jim packed off Joyce in a hansom, with orders to make the round of the hospitals and report at once if he got any news. He was back at midday. The old man was lying at Guy's, broken to pieces and not expected to last the day out. Jim jumped into the cab with a very heavy heart. It was just what he had feared, and it was terribly sad. And yet, as his cab wormed its slow course through the traffic about London Bridge, there came to him a dim apprehension that what seemed to them so sorrowful a happening might, after all, in some inscrutable way, be the better way for old Seth. For his life, if he had lived, must have been a sad and broken affair, and now---- He found the old man lying quietly in his bed, with the screens already drawn round it. He was only just in time. The gaunt gray face brightened at sight of him, as Jim took his hand gently and sat down beside him. "Ah'm fain to see yo'," he said, with difficulty. "'Twur a waggin . . . aw my fault. . . . Tell her. . . . Tell her . . ."--the crushed chest laboured in agony,--"tell her to come whoam. . . ." And presently, without having spoken again, the dim light failed suddenly in the weather-worn gray eyes, and the life faded out of the gnarled brown hand, and Jim, boy still, put down his head and sobbed at the grim sadness of it all. A nurse peeped round the screen and was surprised at the sight, for the eagerness of the splendid young officer to get to the uncouth old wreck, of whom, beyond his mortal injuries, they had been able to make so little, had impressed them all. It was not till Jim had mopped himself up at last, and stood taking a last sad look at the tired old face, that she came in again. "You knew the old man, sir?" she said sympathetically, behind which lay considerable curiosity. "I've known him all my life. He's one of our people from Carne. It's terribly sad, you know. His daughter left home, and he came up to look for her. Think of it--to look for her in London! And I was afraid, all the time, how it would end. And it has. Poor old Seth!" He told them all they wanted to know, and arranged with them to have the old man decently buried, and gave them money for the purpose and something for the hospital, and his own name and address. "Then you're going to the war," said the nurse, with an animated face. "Oh yes; we may go any day now." "You ought to take some of us with you. You'll need us, you'll see." He had promised to call on Mme Beteta that afternoon, and would have put off the visit but that he knew she would be disappointed, and she had shown herself so very kindly disposed towards him.