"You have been living here ever since the middle of October, working here, and your own father and mother don't know where you are?" "Your people are the only ones who know." Peter eyed him in silence for a minute. "Why did you shoot me, Jim?" he asked more gently. "How do I know?" exclaimed Hammond. "I was drinking; I was just about mad with drink. I liked you well enough, Peter,--I didn't want to kill you,--but the devil was in me. It was drink made me act so bad in St. John; it was drink made me desert; it was drink that came near making a murderer of me. That's the truth, Peter--and now I wish you'd go downstairs, for I don't want my father or Vivia to find me here--or to know anything about me till I'm in France." "Shall I find you here when I come back?" asked Peter. "I'll come downstairs as soon as they go," said Hammond. Peter was about to leave the room when he suddenly remembered the errand that had brought him away from the company downstairs. It was a photograph of himself taken at the age of five years. Vivia had heard of it and asked for it; and before either of his parents or Flora had been able to think of a way of stopping him he had started upstairs for it. Now he found it on the top of a shelf of old books and wiped off the dust on his sleeve. "Vivia wants it," he said, smiling self-consciously. He found Flora waiting at the head of the stairs for him. "It's all right; I've had a talk with him," he whispered, and when he reached the sitting room he met the anxious glances of his parents with a smile and nod that set their immediate anxieties at rest. It was past midnight when Vivia and her father drove away. Then Jim came downstairs, and Peter shook hands with him in the most natural way in the world. "When we met in my bedroom we were both too astonished to shake hands," explained Peter. "You must sleep in Dick's room now, Peter," said Mrs. Starkley. "Only for one night," said Jim, trying to smile but making a poor job of it. "I'll be off to-morrow, now that Peter is home again--just as I planned all along, you know. I--it isn't the going back to the army I mind; it is--leaving you people." He smiled more desperately than ever. Mrs. Starkley and Flora did not dare trust their voices to reply. John Starkley laid a hand on Jim's shoulder and said, "Go when it suits you, Jim, and come back when it suits you--and we shall miss you when you are away, remember that." The three men sat up for another hour, talking of Peter's experiences and Jim's plans. They went upstairs at last, but even then neither Peter nor Jim could sleep, for the one was restless with happiness and the other with the excitement of impending change. Peter would see Vivia on the morrow, and Jim would meet strange faces. Peter had returned to the security that he had fought and shed his blood for and to the life and people he loved; Jim's fighting was all before him, and behind him a disgrace to be outlived.