The bedroom door flew open. Harry stood panting on the threshold, holding a London paper in his hand. For all his haste, he didn't say a word. He simply stared--stared rather weakly and stupidly, as though he'd forgotten what he'd come about. His lips quivered. The twitching of his fingers made the paper crackle. Peter raised himself on his elbow. “Got back all right, old man. Why--.” He saw Harry's face clearly; it was drawn and ghastly. “Don't look like that. What is it? For God's sake, tell me.” “Dead.” “Dead?” He threw back the clothes, leapt out and snatched the paper. Standing in the sunlight he caught the head-line, TO SAVE OTHERS. His eyes skipped the matter below it, gathering the sense: “At the crowded hour--in Hyde Park yesterday afternoon--lost control of his horse, Satan--bolted to where children were playing--swerved aside--rode purposely into an iron fence--thrown and broke his neck.” The paper fell from his hand. He picked it up and reread it. Some mistake! He wouldn't believe it. The Faun Man dead! He'd been so brimming with life. Never again to hear his mandolin strumming! Never again to hear his gallant laughter! To walk through the roses at Tree-Tops--and he would not be there! Peter sat down on the edge of the bed, clenching his forehead in his hands. The voice, the gestures, everything--everything that had been so essentially the Faun Man he wanted to recall before he could forget. “If yer gal ain't all yer thought 'er And for everyfing yer've bought 'er She don't seem to care-----” He could see him bending over the strings slyly smiling. He had been of such high courage that he could coin humor, out of his own unhappiness. Then, like a minor air played softly, “Lorie, he loves you. If he asks you again---” and the golden woman's broken assent, “If he asks me.” She had kept him waiting too long. He had asked her for the last time that morning. He couldn't ask her again, however much she desired it--couldn't. She'd blamed him for his first neglect of her--had made it an excuse for her own unfaithfulness. He hadn't met her. His neglect of her had been simply that he was dead. Word came two days later--they had brought him home to Tree-Tops. That evening Peter gained leave of absence. _Whitesheaves!_ The name was embroidered in geraniums on the velvet of the close-cut turf. The train halted long enough for him to alight, then pulled out puffing laboriously. It seemed an affront that people should be journeying when across the fields the Faun Man lay, his journey forever at an end. Only one other passenger got out--a young chap, in flannels and a straw-hat, who was instantly embraced by a radiant-faced girl. They sauntered arm-inarm to where a dog-cart was standing and drove away into the evening stillness, their heads bent together, their laughter floating back in snatches.