When the bitter truth reached him, he learnt, without surprise, that on the night of his vision, her spirit passed....

* * * * *

It was a sharp attack of pneumonia that gave her the coup de grace.  But, in effect, the War had killed her, as it killed many another hyper-sensitive woman, who could not become inured to horror on horror, tragedy on tragedy, whose heart ached for the sorrows of others as if they were her own.  And her personal share had sufficiently taxed her endurance, without added pangs for others, unseen and unknown.  George—­her baby—­had gone down in the Queen Mary.  Jerry, too early sent out to France, had crashed behind the German lines; and after months of uncertainty they had heard he was alive, wounded—­in German hands.  Tara, faithful to the Women’s Hospital in Serbia, had been constantly in danger, living and moving among unimaginable horrors.  Nevil, threatened with septic poisoning, had only been saved at the cost of his left forearm.  Not till he was invalided out, near the close of 1916, had he realised—­too late—­that she was killing herself by inches, with work that alone could leaven anxiety—­up to a point.

But it was the shock of Roy’s imprisonment and the agony of suspense that finally stretched her nerve to breaking-point; so that the sudden onslaught of pneumonia had slain her in the space of a week.  And Roy, knowing her too well, had guessed the truth, in spite of his father’s gallant attempt to shield him from it.

His first letter from that bereft father had been little short of a revelation to the son, who had ventured to suppose he knew him:  a rash supposition where any human being is concerned.  There had been more than one such revelation in the scores of letters that at once uplifted and overwhelmed him, and increased tenfold his pride in being her son.  But outshining all, and utterly unexpected, was a letter from herself, written in those last days, when the others still hoped, against hope, but she knew——­

It had come, with his father’s, in a small, gold-embroidered bag—­scent and colour and exquisite needlework all eloquent of her:  and with it came the other, her talisman since he was born.  Reaching him while brain and body still reeled under the bewildering sense of loss, it had soothed his agony of pain and rebellion like the touch of her fingers on his forehead; had taken the sting from death and robbed the grave of victory....

* * * * *

To-night, in his loneliness, he drew the slim bag out of an inner pocket, and re-read with his eyes the words that were imprinted on his memory.