He came to her one day in the garden, carrying a leggy retriever pup, which he thrust into her arms with an air of magnificent generosity. "I got a dog for you," he explained. "You must have a watch-dog, you know. George gave me the pick of his litter. When I told him I wanted it for you, he let me have his best pup." "Oh!" she cried quickly, and put the little beast down and stooped to pat it. "It's sweet; but you must keep it. I won't take your pup." "We'll share it," John returned magnanimously. "It will stay here. I expect I'll run up most days to see it." He fondled the puppy lovingly. "Isn't he a beauty? He's called Regret." "Regret!" she repeated slowly. "I don't think I like that name for a dog. Let us change it, shall we?" "I thought it a silly sort of name myself," John replied. "But George named it. Perhaps he wouldn't like it changed. We can cut it down to Gret." She bent down suddenly and kissed him, to his no small surprise. It pleased her that he showed consideration for others in his direct boyish way: she wondered whence he inherited that kindly characteristic. John suffered the caress, but he looked embarrassed. "I say," he said; "that's all right when we are alone; but don't do it in front of the others." And then, in case he had hurt her feelings, he slipped an arm round her waist, and walked with her, carrying the puppy, down the garden path in the brief twilight before the darkness fell. Book 4--CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT. Four years passed away. They were the years of the Great War, which flung the world into mourning and left a pall of depression like a blighting legacy on its passing. Among the men who left South Africa for Europe to fight for the old country was George Sinclair. He had been one of the first to go; and after three years, the greater part of which was spent in France, he was shot through the lung, and invalided out and sent for treatment to England. During the years he was away he wrote to Esme regularly. He had begged permission to write to her before he left. He did not ask her to write in reply; and for a long while she received his letters without any thought of answering them. But, as the war progressed and the horrors of war deepened, her sympathy with the man and her admiration for his cheerful courage, moved her to open a correspondence with him.