Amaryllis stole up the short aisle, and paused when she came between the two tall canopied tombs of recumbent sixteenth century knights, which made so dignified a screen for the little side aisles--and then she moved on and knelt in the shaft of the sunlight there at the carved rails. And no one ever raised to God a purer or more fervent prayer. She stayed until the sun sunk below the window, and then she rose and went back to the house, and up to her cedar room. And now she must write to John! She began--once--twice--but tore up each sheet. Her news was a supreme happiness, but so difficult to transmit! At last she finished three sides of her own rather large sized note-paper, but as she read over what she had written, she was not quite content; it did not express all that she desired John to know. But how could a mere letter convey the wordless gladness in her heart? She wanted to tell him how she would worship their baby, and how she would pray that they should be given a son--and how she would remember all his love words spoken that last time they were together, and weave the joy of them round the little form, so that it should grow strong and beautiful and radiant, and come to earth welcomed and blessed! Something of all this finally did get written, and she concluded thus: "John, is it not all wonderful and blissful and mysterious, this coming proof of our love? And when I lie awake I say over and over again the sweet name you called me, and which I want to sign! I am not just Amaryllis any longer, but your very own 'Sweetheart'!" John received this letter by the afternoon post in camp. He sat down alone in his tent and read and re-read each line. Then he stiffened and remained icily still. He could not have analysed his emotions. They were so intermixed with thankfulness and pain--and underneath there was a fierce, primitive jealousy burning. "Sweetheart!" he said aloud, as though the word were anathema! "And must I call her that 'Sweetheart'! Oh! God, it is too hard!" and he clenched his hands. By the same post came a letter from Denzil, of whose movements he had asked to be kept informed, saying that the 110th Hussars were going out at once, so that they would probably soon meet in France. Then John wrote to Amaryllis. The very force of his feelings seemed to freeze his power of expression, and when he had finished he knew that it was but a cold, lifeless thing he had produced, quite inadequate as an answer to her tender, exalted words. "My poor little girl," he sighed as he read it. "I know this will disappoint her. What a hideous, sickening mockery everything is." He forced himself to add a postscript, a practice very foreign to his usual methodical rule. "Never forget that I love you, Amaryllis--Sweetheart!" he said. And then he went to his Colonel and asked for two days' leave, and when it was granted for the following Saturday and Monday he wired to his wife asking her to meet him in Brook Street.