He went back to his rooms for the last time, and tried with pen and paper to set down some justification of himself for Sophie’s eyes.  But he could not satisfy himself with that.  His pride revolted against it.  Why should he plead?  Or rather, what was the use of pleading?  Why should he explain?  He had a case for the defence, but defence avails nothing after sentence has been pronounced.  He had waited too long.  He had been tried and found wanting.

He tore the letter into strips, and having sent his things to the station long before, put on his hat now and walked slowly there himself, for it lacked but an hour of train-time.

At the corner of Pender and Hastings he met Sam Carr.

“Welcome, youthful stranger,” Carr greeted heartily.  “I haven’t seen you for a long time.  Walk down to the Strand with me and have a drink.  I’ve been looking over the Vancouver Construction Company’s yard, and it’s a very dry place.”

Thompson assented.  He had time and it was on his way.  He reacted willingly to the suggestion.  He needed something to revive his spirit, but he had not thought of the stimulus of John Barleycorn until Carr spoke.

In the Strand bar he poured himself half a glass of Scotch whisky.  Carr regarded him meditatively over port wine.

“That’s the first time I ever saw you touch the hard stuff,” he observed.

“It will probably be the last,” Thompson replied.

“Why?”

“I’m off,” Thompson explained.  “I have sold out my business and have been accepted for the Royal Flying Corps.  I’m taking the train at six to report at Eastern headquarters.”

Carr fingered the stem of his empty glass a second.  “I hate to see you go, and still I’m glad you’re going,” he said with an odd, wistful note in his voice.  “I’d go too, Thompson, if I weren’t too old to be any use over there.”

“Eh?” Thompson looked at him keenly.  “Have you been revising your philosophy of life?”

“No.  Merely bringing it up to date,” Carr replied soberly.  “We have what we have in the way of government, economic practice, principles of justice, morality—­so forth and so on.  I’m opposed to a lot of it.  Too much that’s obsolete.  A lot that’s downright bad.  But bad as it is in spots, it is not a circumstance to what we should have to endure if the Germans win this war.  I believe in my people and my country.  I don’t believe in the German system of dominating by sheer force and planned terror.  The militarists and the market hunters have brought us to this.  But we have to destroy the bogey they have raised before we can deal with them.  And a man can’t escape nationalism.  It’s bred in us.  What the tribe thinks, the individual thinks.  This thing is in the air.  We are getting unanimous.  Whether or not we approve the cause, we are too proud to consider getting whipped in a war that was forced on us.  One way and another, no matter what we privately think of our politicians and industrial