‘Ripping!’ said Desmond softly.  ’There were jolly mornings in France too.’  Then his clear brow contracted.  Aubrey stooped to him.

‘Any news?’ said the blanched lips.

‘None yet, old man.  We shan’t get the papers till eight.’

‘What’s the date?’

‘March 18th.’

Desmond gave a long sigh.

‘I would have liked to be in it!’

‘In the big battle?’ Aubrey’s lip trembled.  ’You have done your bit, old man.’

‘But how is it going to end?’ said the boy, moving his head restlessly.  ’Shall we win?—­or they?  I shall live as long as ever I can—­just to know.  I feel quite jolly now—­isn’t it strange?—­and yet I made the doctors tell me—­’

He turned a bright look on his brother, and his voice grew stronger.  ’I had such a queer dream last night, Aubrey,—­about you—­and that friend of yours—­do you remember?—­you used to bring him down—­to stay here—­when Pam and I were little—­Freddy Vivian—­’

The boy looking out into the woods and the morning did not see the change—­the spasm—­in his brother’s face.  He continued—­’We kids liked him awfully.  Well, I saw him!  I actually did.  He stood there—­by you.  He was talking a lot—­I didn’t understand—­but—­’

A sudden movement.  Aubrey fell on his knees beside the bed.  His deep haggard eyes stared at his brother.  There was in them an anguish, an eagerness, scarcely human.

‘Desmond!—­can’t you remember?’

The words were just breathed—­panted.

Desmond, whose eyes had closed again, smiled faintly.

’Why, of course I can’t remember.  He had his hand on your shoulder.  I just thought he was cheering you up—­about something.’

‘Desmond!—­it was I that killed him—­I could have saved him!’

The boy opened his eyes.  His startled look expressed the question he had not strength to put.

Aubrey bent over the bed, speaking hurriedly—­under possession.  ’It was at Neuve Chapelle.  I had gone back for help—­he and ten or twelve others who had moved on too fast were waiting in a bit of shelter till I could get some more men from the Colonel.  The Germans were coming on thick.  And I went back.  There was a barrage on—­and on the way—­I shirked—­my nerve went.  I sat down for twenty minutes by my watch—­I hid—­in a shell-hole.  Then I went to the Colonel, and he gave me the men.  And when we got up to the post, I was just a quarter of an hour too late.  Vivian was lying there dead—­and the others had been mopped up—­prisoners—­by a German bombing party.  It was I who killed Vivian.  No one knows.’

Aubrey’s eyes searched those of the boy.

The next moment Mannering was torn with poignant remorse that, under the sudden shock of that name, he should have spoken at last—­after three years—­to this dying lad.  Crime added to crime!

‘Don’t think of it any more, Desmond,’ he said hurriedly, raising himself and laying his hand on his brother’s.  ’I oughtn’t to have told you.’