Then there came a memory of Heinrich talking very seriously; his glasses magnifying his round blue eyes, talking of his ideas about life, of his beliefs and disbeliefs, of his ambitions and prospects in life.

He confessed two principal ambitions.  They varied perhaps in their absolute dimensions, but they were of equal importance in his mind.  The first of these was, so soon as he had taken his doctorate in philology, to give himself to the perfecting of an International Language; it was to combine all the virtues of Esperanto and Ido.  “And then,” said Herr Heinrich, “I do not think there will be any more wars—­ever.”  The second ambition, which was important first because Herr Heinrich found much delight in working at it, and secondly because he thought it would give him great wealth and opportunity for propagating the perfect speech, was the elaboration of his system of marginal indentations for dictionaries and alphabetical books of reference of all sorts.  It was to be so complete that one would just stand over the book to be consulted, run hand and eye over its edges and open the book—­“at the very exact spot.”  He proposed to follow this business up with a quite Germanic thoroughness.  “Presently,” he said, “I must study the machinery by which the edges of books are cut.  It is possible I may have to invent these also.”  This was the double-barrelled scheme of Herr Heinrich’s career.  And along it he was to go, and incidentally develop his large vague heart that was at present so manifestly unsatisfied....

Such was the brief story of Herr Heinrich.

That story was over—­just as Hugh’s story was over.  That first volume would never now have a second and a third.  It ended in some hasty grave in Russia.  The great scheme for marginal indices would never be patented, the duets with the pianola would never be played again.

Imagination glimpsed a little figure toiling manfully through the slush and snow of the Carpathians; saw it staggering under its first experience of shell fire; set it amidst attacks and flights and fatigue and hunger and a rush perhaps in the darkness; guessed at the wounding blow.  Then came the pitiful pilgrimage of the prisoners into captivity, captivity in a land desolated, impoverished and embittered.  Came wounds wrapped in filthy rags, pain and want of occupation, and a poor little bent and broken Heinrich sitting aloof in a crowded compound nursing a mortifying wound....

He used always to sit in a peculiar attitude with his arms crossed on his crossed legs, looking slantingly through his glasses....

So he must have sat, and presently he lay on some rough bedding and suffered, untended, in infinite discomfort; lay motionless and thought at times, it may be, of Matching’s Easy and wondered what Hugh and Teddy were doing.  Then he became fevered, and the world grew bright-coloured and fantastic and ugly for him.  Until one day an infinite weakness laid hold of him, and his pain grew faint and all his thoughts and memories grew faint—­and still fainter....