“We’re winning,” said I feebly.

“O Lord, yes,” agreed Doe, dreamily echoing an old memory.

It grew darker, though not yet three o’clock; and my brain seemed to be receding from me with the light.  I felt tired and frightened.  There was a long pause, till at last I said: 

“Well, I s’pose I must be going now.”

God!  The futility of the words!  And they were the last I could utter to Doe!...  I grasped his wrist.  If I couldn’t speak, I could pass all my abounding love and misery through the pressure of my hand.

“Good-bye,” he said.  “Thanks for coming to see me.”

The boyish words broke me up.  My brows contracted in pain.  My eyes burned, and misery filled my throat.  I even felt a smile at the tragedy of it all pass over my face.  Then with an audible moan I rushed away.

I went out to my horse without waiting for Monty.  I could have waited for nobody.  I wanted motion, action, something to occupy my hands and feet and mind.  As I mounted the mare she began to walk away.  But walking was not action enough.  Impatiently I urged her to a canter and a gallop.  And, while she galloped, increasing her distance from the “White City,” I asked myself if I realised that I was riding away from Doe for ever.

The spirited mare, knowing that she was going home to her lines, opened out like a winner racing up the straight.  The extravagance of her speed exactly fitted my extravagant mood.  I promised myself that, just as I was letting my animal have its head, so I would slacken all moral reins, and let my life run uncontrolled.  There was not more beauty in things than ugliness, nor more happiness in life than pain.  Have done with this straining after ideals!...  The horse gathered pace.

Then, as I rode savagely and thought savagely, a strange thing happened.  I was gripping the mare with my knees, and, now that she was attaining her highest speed, I leaned forward like a jockey, throwing my weight on her withers.  The wind rushed past me; the exhilaration of speed filled me; that invigorating sensation of strong life pulling upon my reins and springing between the grip of my knees ran through my veins; my lungs tightened; a pleasing weariness set in below the heart; and for a moment I almost felt the unconquerable joy of youth in life!

Instantly I pulled the wild animal in, and dropped into a melancholy walk.  I felt as if I had been trapped.  Not yet would I be disloyal to Doe by admitting beauty in creation or joy in living.  I walked the lathering mare to the lines, like a tired jockey who has run his race.  Then I wandered home to Fusilier Bluff—­home to a dug-out for two!  I couldn’t enter the dug-out yet.  I lay down on the Bluff, watching the late sun nearing the hills of Imbros.

The misery possessing me was of that passionate kind which embraces self-torture.  I wilfully excavated the ten past years for memories of Doe, though, in so doing, I was pressing upon my wound to make it hurt.  I watched him as a boy, getting into the next bed in the Bramhall dormitory, or rowing in the evening light up the river at Falmouth.  I saw two young khaki figures, his and mine, setting out at midnight to sin and sully ourselves together.  I heard him quoting on the hilltops of Mudros his haunting couplet: