In November Colonel Dacre was brought home gravely wounded, to a hospital for officers in London. A nurse gave me the news in a letter in which she said that he had asked to see me before an impending hazardous operation. I went up to town and found him wrecked almost beyond recognition. As we were the merest of acquaintances with nothing between us save our common link with Boyce, I feared lest he should desire to tell me of some shameful discovery. But his gay greeting and the brave smile, pathetically grotesque through the bandages in which his head was wrapped, reassured me. Only his eyes and mouth were visible. "It's worth while being done in," said he. "It makes one feel like a Sultan. You have just to clap your hands and say 'I want this,' and you've got it. I've a good mind to say to this dear lady, 'Fetch their gracious Majesties from Buckingham Palace,' and I'm sure they'd be here in a tick. It's awfully good of you to come, Meredyth." I signed to Marigold, who had carried me into the ward and set me down on a chair, and to the Sister, the "dear lady" of Dacre's reference, to withdraw, and after a few sympathetic words I asked him why he had sent for me. "I'm broken to bits all over," he replied. "The doctors here say they never saw such a blooming mess-up of flesh pretending to be alive. And as for talking, they'd just as soon expect speech from a jellyfish squashed by a steam-roller. If I do get through, I'll be a helpless crock all my days. I funked it till I thought of you. I thought the sight of another fellow who has gone through it and stuck it out might give me courage. I've had my wife here. We're rather fond of one another, you know ... My God! what brave things women are! If she had broken down all over me I could have risen to the occasion. But she didn't, and I felt a cowardly worm." "I had a brave wife, too," said I, and for a few moments we talked shyly about the women who had played sacred parts in our lives. Whether he was comforted by what I said I don't know. Probably he only listened politely. But I think he found comfort in a sympathetic ear. Presently he turned on to Boyce, the real motive of his summons. He repented much that he had told and written to me. His long defamation of the character of a brother-officer had lain on his conscience. And lately he had, at last, met Boyce personally, and his generous heart had gone out to the man's soldierly charm. "I never felt such a slanderous brute in my life as when I shook him by the hand. You know the feeling--how one wants to get behind a hedge and kick oneself. Kick oneself," he repeated faintly. Then he closed his eyes and his lips contracted in pain. The Sister, who had been watching him from a distance, came up. He had talked enough. It was time to go. But at the announcement he opened his eyes again and with an effort recovered his gaiety. "The whole gist of the matter lies in the postscript. Like a woman's letter. I must have my postscript."