They were to be relieved next day. The men were so worn out that they could hardly move. Winn and Lionel found their own bodies difficult to control; they had become heavy and inert from want of sleep, but their minds were alive and worked with feverish swiftness, like the minds of people in a long illness, when consciousness creeps above the level of pain. Winn had just returned from his evening round of the trenches. Lionel was resting in his dug-out; he heard Winn's approach. Winn was coughing again--a little choking, short cough. He bent double and crouched down beside Lionel without speaking. "Well," said Lionel, "to-morrow we'll be out of this. About time too--with that cough of yours." Winn was silent for a moment, then he said, "I suppose you know I'm nearly done?" Lionel bowed his head. "Yes," he muttered, "I suppose I know it." After a pause Winn began again. "There isn't much good talking, of course. On the other hand, you may as well know what I feel. I've had tremendous luck in one way and another. I never expected to get the regiment, for instance--and your coming out here and all that. I've seen how jolly things could be." "You haven't had them," said Lionel in a low voice. "The things you wanted most, I mean. Your pitch was queered too soon." "I don't know," said Winn, painstakingly. "In a sense, of course, you haven't had things if you've only seen 'em. Still when you come to think of it, you partly have. Look at the Germans; we've worked considerably into them without seeing 'em, haven't we? What I mean is that I appreciate goodness now; I see its point. Not that I'd have kept clear a moment by myself. I hope you quite understand that? I've been a blackguard and I'd have been a worse one if I'd had the chance. But I'm glad I hadn't the chance now. I don't know that I'm putting the thing straight--but you know what she's like? Thank God I couldn't alter her!" They listened for a moment to the night. Their ears were always awake, registering sounds from the sodden, death-ridden fields beneath them, and above, but they heard nothing beyond the drip of the rain, an occasional groan from a man tortured by rheumatism, and the long-drawn scream of a distant shell. "You can call yourself what you like," said Lionel at last. "I know what you are, that's enough for me, and she knew it; that's one reason I got to caring for her. "I dare say that seems a rummy thing to you, to care for a woman because she cares for another man. But it's a fact." Winn moved uneasily. Then he said abruptly, "Look here, young 'un, I was wrong before when I asked you to step in instead of me, but I'm not wrong now. You can take it from me she'll marry you in the end. She's young; be patient. I dare say she'll think for a time she's had enough, but she hasn't. There's no good living a lonely life. We may both get done in, of course. But I don't fancy we shall. I want you to promise me not to get killed if you can help it.