They had orders to be ready for the retreat any time that night.

Billy had brought her John’s wrist watch and cigarette case.

“Billy,” she said, “that soldier gave me this.”

She showed him the pocketbook.

“What soldier?”

“The one who was with the captain.”

“He gave it you?”

“Yes.  He said he found it on the battlefield.  It must have dropped out of John’s pocket.”

“It couldn’t have dropped....  I wonder why he kept that.”

“But he didn’t keep it.  He gave it to me.”

“He was going to keep it, or he’d have handed it over to me with the other things.”

“Does it matter?”

“Well—­”

She thought:  “Why can’t he leave it alone?  They had all his things, his poor things.”

But Sutton was still thoughtful.  “I wonder why he gave it you.”

“I think he was sorry.”

“Was he!”

“Sorry for me, I mean.”

Sutton said nothing.  He was absorbed in contemplating the photograph.  They had been taken standing by the hurdle of the sheepfold, she with the young lamb in her arms and John looking down at her.

“That was taken at Barrow Hill Farm,” she said, “where we were together.  He looked just like that....  Oh, Billy, do you think the past’s really past?...  Isn’t there some way he could go on being what he was?”

“I don’t know, Sharlie, I don’t know.”

“Why couldn’t he have stayed there!  Then he’d always have been like that.  We should never have known.”

“You’re not going to be unhappy about him?”

“No.  I think I’m glad.  It’s a sort of relief.  I shan’t ever have that awful feeling of wondering what he’ll do next....  Billy—­you were with him, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Was he all right?”

“Would it make you happier to think that he was or to know that he wasn’t?”

“Oh—­just to know.”

“Well, I’m afraid he wasn’t, quite....  He paid for it, Sharlie.  If he hadn’t turned his back he wouldn’t have been shot.”

She nodded.

“What?  You knew?”

“No.  No.  I wasn’t sure.”

She was possessed of this craving to know, to know everything.  Short of that she would be still bound to him; she could never get free.

“Billy—­what did happen, really?  Did he leave the German?”

“The German?”

“Yes.  Was that why he shot him?”

“The German didn’t shoot him.  He was too far gone, poor devil, to shoot anybody....  It was the Belgian captain that he left....  He was lying there, horribly wounded.  His servant was with him; they were calling out to Conway—­”

“Calling to him?”

“Yes.  And he was going all right when some shrapnel fell—­a regular shower bath, quite near, like it did with you and me.  That scared him and he just turned and ran.  The servant shouted to him to stop, and when he wouldn’t he went after him and put a bullet through his back.”