Michael's wife, Serena, was waiting for her husband. The gallery in which she sat was full of memorials of the past. The walls were covered with portraits of Damers. Michael's grandfather in a blue frock coat and light grey trousers. Michael's father, John Damer, ruddy and determined in tweeds, with a favourite dog. Michael himself, not so ruddy, nor so determined, in white smock and blue stockings. Michael's mother, beautiful and austere in her robe of office. Presently an aeroplane droned overhead, which she knew meant the departure of the great Indian doctor, and a moment later Michael came slowly down the landing steps in the garden, and entered the gallery. "The operation has been entirely successful," he said. They looked gravely at each other. "It seems incredible," she said. "He said it was a simple case, that all through those years while Father was unconscious the skull had been slowly drawing together and mending itself, that he only released a slight lesion in the brain. He has gone back to Lucknow for an urgent case, but he says he will look in again in a couple of days time if I let him know there is an adverse symptom. He said he felt sure all would go well, but that we must guard him from sudden shocks, and break to him very gradually that it is fifty years since he was hit at Ypres." "He'll wake up in his own room where he has lain so long," said Serena. "Has the nurse changed yet?" "Yes. We made up the uniform from the old illustrated papers. Blue gown, white cap and a red cross on the arm." "We had better get into our things, too," said Michael nervously. "The blue serge suit is on your bed, and a collar and a tie. I found them in the oak chest. They must have been forgotten." "And you?" "I will wear your Mother's gown which she wore at your christening. She kept it all her life." A few minutes later Michael, uneasy in a serge suit which was too tight for him, and his wife in a short grey gown entered the sick room and sat down one on each side of the bed. The nurse, excited and self-conscious in her unfamiliar attire, withdrew to the window. The old, old man on the bed stirred uneasily, and his white beard quivered. His wide eyes looked vacantly at his son, as they had looked at him all Michael's life. Serena, with a hand that trembled a little, poured a few drops into a spoon, and put them into the half-open lips. Then they held their breath and watched. John Damer frowned. A bewildered look came into his vacant eyes, and he closed them. And he, who had spoken no word for fifty years, said in a thin quavering voice: "The guns have ceased." He opened his eyes suddenly. They wandered to the light, and fell upon the nurse near the window. "I am in hospital," he said. "No. You are in your own home," said Michael, laying his hand on the ancient wrinkled hand. The dim sunken eyes turned slowly in the direction of the voice.