“Tell me what you thought.” she said quietly. She spoke to him as she would have spoken to Robbie, making him feel very young and little. When she spoke like that there was not much that he would not have told her. “I thought that you might not remember me or want to see me. We met so oddly; after the lapse of a year you might easily have regarded my call as an impertinence.” “An impertinence!” There were tears in her eyes when she raised her head. “You lost your arm that I and my children might be safe, and you talk about impertinence.” “Oh, that!” He glanced down at his empty sleeve. “That's nothing. It's the luck of the game and might have happened to anybody.” “But you lost it for me,” she re-asserted, “that I might be safe. You must have suffered terribly.” Seeing her distress, he laughed gaily. “Losing an arm wasn't the worst that might have happened. I'm one of the fortunate ones; I'm still above ground. The thing wasn't very painful--nothing is when you've simply got to face it. It's the thinking about pain that hurts.... Hulloa, look at the time; I can just get back to the hospital by ten. If we're late, they punish us by keeping us in next night.” At the top of the stairs as she was seeing him out, he halted and looked back into the room. “It's quiet and cosy in there. I don't want to leave; I feel like a boy being packed off to school. You can't understand how wonderful it is after all the marching and rough times and being cut about to be allowed to sit by a fire with a woman. I loved to watch you at your sewing.” “It's because you're tired,” she said, “more tired than you know. You must come very often and rest.” CHAPTER IX [Illustration: 9109]