The curtain was up again and I was back in my other world. I cannot tell you anything of the rest of the play--I remember nothing. Only I know that I was actually living over again those awful days in the forest--the heat, the flies, the smells, the glassy sheen of the trees, the perpetual rumble of the guns, the desolate whine of the shells--and then Marie's death, Trenchard's sorrow, Trenchard's death, that last view of Semyonov... and I felt that I was being made to remember it all for a purpose, as though my old friend, rich now with his wiser knowledge, was whispering to me, "All life is bound up. You cannot leave anything behind you; the past, the present, the future are one. You had pushed us away from you, but we are with you always for ever. I am your friend for ever, and Marie is your friend, and now, once more, you have to take your part in a battle, and we have come to you to share it with you. Do not be confused by history or public events or class struggle or any big names; it is the individual and the soul of the individual alone that matters. I and Marie and Vera and Nina and Markovitch--our love for you, your love for us, our courage, our self-sacrifice, our weakness, our defeat, our progress--these are the things for which life exists; it exists as a training-ground for the immortal soul...." With a sweep of colour the stage broke into a mist of movement. Masked and hooded figures in purple and gold and blue and red danced madly off into a forest of stinking, sodden leaves and trees as thin as tissue-paper burnt by the sun. "Oh--aye! oh--aye! oh--aye!" came from the wounded, and the dancers answered, "Tra-la-la-la! Tra-la-la-la,'" The golden screens were drawn forward, the lights were up again, and the whole theatre was stirring like a coloured paper ant heap. Outside in the foyer I found Lawrence at my elbow. "Go and see her," he whispered to me, "as soon as possible! Tell her--tell her--no, tell her nothing. But see that she's all right and let me know. See her to-morrow--early!" I could say nothing to him, for the Baron had joined us. "Good-night! Good-night! A most delightful evening!... Most amusing!... No, thank you, I shall walk!" "Come and see us," said the Baroness, smiling. "Very soon," I answered. I little knew that I should never see either of them again. III