In the middle of the room stood a long black cloth-covered box.  Lane stepped forward.  Upon the dark background, in striking contrast, lay a white, stern face, marble-like in its stone-cold rigidity.  Blair, his comrade!

The moment Lane saw the face, his strange fear and old gloomy bitterness returned.  Something shot through him which trembled in his soul.  To him the story of Blair’s sacrifice was there to read in his quiet face, and with it was an expression he had never seen, a faint wonder of relief, which suggested peace.

How strange to look upon Blair and find him no longer responsive!  Something splendid, loyal, generous, loving had passed away.  Gone was the vital spark that had quickened and glowed to noble thoughts; gone was the strength that had been weakness; gone the quick, nervous, high-strung spirit; gone the love that had no recompense.  The drawn face told of physical suffering.  Hard Blair had found the world, bitter the reward of the soldier, wretched the unholy worship of money and luxury, vain and hollow mockery the home of his boyhood.

Lane went down the path and out of the gate.  He had faint perceptions of the dark trees along the road.  He came to a little pine grove.  It was very quiet.  There was a hum of insects, and the familiar, sad, ever-present swishing of the wind through the trees.  He listened to its soft moan, and it eased the intensity of his feelings.  This emotion was new to him.  Death, however, had touched him more than once.  Well he remembered his stunned faculties, the unintelligible mystery, the awe and the grief consequent on the death of his first soldier comrade in France.  But this was different; it was a strange disturbance of his heart.  Oppression began to weight him down, and a nameless fear.

He had to cross the river on his way home to the cottage.  In the middle of the bridge he halted to watch the sliding flood go over the dam, to see the yellow turgid threshing of waves below.  The mystic voices that had always assailed his ears were now roaring.  They had a message for him.  It was death.  Had he not just looked upon the tragic face of his comrade?  Out over the tumbling waters Lane’s strained gaze swept, up and down, to and fro, while the agony in his heart reached its height.  The tumult of the flood resembled his soul.  He spent an hour there, then turned slowly homeward.

He stopped at the cottage gate.  It was now almost dark.  The evening star, lonely and radiant, peeped over the black hill.  With some strange working at his heart, with some strange presence felt, Lane gazed at the brilliant star.  How often had he watched it!  Out there in the gloom somewhere, perhaps near at hand, had lurked the grim enemy waiting for Blair, that now might be waiting for him.  He trembled.  The old morbidness knocked at his heart.  He shivered again and fought against something intangible.  The old conviction thrust itself upon him.  He had been marked by fate, life, war, death!  He knew it; he had only forgotten.