"Don't let yourself get dazzled by the outside shine of any man's actions! A man isn't necessarily a hero because he doesn't run away. It is the true-hearted, steady-going chaps like Fisher who keep the world wagging. They are the solid material. The others are only a sort of trimming stuck on for effect and torn off when the time comes for something new. So marry the man you love, Molly, and forget that anyone else ever made a fool of himself for your sweet sake! "Your friend for ever, "Charlie." Thus ended, with a simplicity sublime, the few words of fatherly advice which as a legacy this boy had left behind him. Fisher laid the note reverently aside and spoke with a great gentleness. "Tell me, dear," he said, "will it make it any easier for you if I go away? If so--you have only to say so." The words cost him greater resolution than any he had ever uttered. Yet he said them without apparent effort. Molly did not answer him for many seconds. Her head drooped a little lower. "I have been--dazzled," she said at last, and there was a piteous quiver in her voice. "I do not know if I shall ever make you understand." "You need never attempt it, Molly," he answered very steadily. "I make no claim upon you. Simply, I am yours to keep or to throw away. Which are you going to do?" He paused for her answer. But she made none. Only in her trouble it seemed to him that she clung to his support. He drew her a little closer to him. "Molly," he said very tenderly, "do you want me, child? Shall I stay?" And at length she answered him, realising that it was to this man, hero or no hero, she had given her heart. "Yes, stay, Gerald!" she whispered earnestly. "I want you." * * * Perhaps he understood her better than she thought. Perhaps Charlie's last words to him had taught him a wisdom to which he had not otherwise attained. Or perhaps his love was large enough to cover and hide all that might be lacking in that which she offered to him. But at least neither then nor later did he ever seek to know how deeply the glamour of another man's heroism had pierced her heart. She tried to whisper an explanation, but he hushed the words unuttered. "It is all right, child," he said. "I am satisfied. It is only the lookers-on who are allowed to see all the cards. I think when we meet him again he will tell us that we played them right." There was a deep quiver in his voice as he spoke, but there was no lack of confidence in his words. Looking upwards, Molly saw that his eyes were full of tears. * * * * * THE SECOND FIDDLE A low whistle floated through the slumbrous silence and died softly away among the sand-dunes.