Dick was conscious of feeling a vague and unsteady wonder at himself. Why this sudden interest in a girl? He had never felt anything of the kind before. Had this something to do with the wounds in his head? He could not entertain that suggestion seriously. However that might be, he felt that his sudden interest in this young person whom he had not so much as heard of an hour ago greatly increased his interest in many things. He was conscious of a sure friendship for her, as if he had known her for years. He knew that this friendship was a more important thing to him than his friendships with Hiram Sill and Frank Sacobie--and yet those friendships had grown day by day, strengthened week by week and stood the test of suffering and peril. She told him that her father was still in France, but safe now at General Headquarters, that her eldest brother had been killed in action in 1914, that another was fighting in the East, and that still another was a midshipman on the North Sea. Also, she told him that she wanted to go to France as a V. A. D., that she had left school six months ago and was working five hours every day making bandages and splints, and that she was seventeen years old. Those confidences melted Dick's tongue. He told her his own age and that he had added a little to it at the time of enlisting; he spoke of night and daylight raids and major offensive operations in which he had taken part, of the military careers of Henry and Peter and of life at Beaver Dam. She seemed to be as keenly interested in his confidences as he had been in hers. In the library, where coffee was served, Dick continued to cling to his new friend. The party came to an end at last, leaving Dick in a somewhat scattered state of mind. Before leaving with her daughters, Mrs. Kingston gave her address and a cordial invitation to make use of it to each of the three. Before long Wilson took Jack off to bed. Then Hiram left to keep an appointment at the Royal Automobile Club with a captain who knew some one at the War Office. That left Frank and Dick with Jack Davenport's library to themselves. One place was much the same as another to Dick just then. He was again wondering if he could possibly be suffering in some subtle and painless way from the wounds in his head. With enquiring fingers he felt the spotless bandage that still adorned the top of his head. Sacobie got out of his chair suddenly, with an abruptness of movement that was foreign to him, and walked the length of the room and back. He halted before Dick and stared down at him keenly for several seconds without attracting that battered youth's attention. So he fell again to pacing the room, walking lightly and with straight feet, the true Indian walk. At last he halted again in front of Dick's chair. "I am not going back to the battalion," he said. Dick sat up with a jerk and stared at him.