Joan took him into her room at the end of the ward, from where, through the open door, she could still keep watch.  They spoke in low tones.

“It’s done you good,” said Joan.  “You look every inch the jolly Jack Tar.”  He was hard and tanned, and his eyes were marvellously bright.

“Yes,” he said, “I love the sea.  It’s clean and strong.”

A fear was creeping over her.  “Why have you come back?” she asked.

He hesitated, keeping his eyes upon the ground.

“I don’t suppose you will agree with me,” he said.  “Somehow I felt I had to.”

A Conscientious Objector.  She might have guessed it.  A “Conchy,” as they would call him in the Press:  all the spiteful screamers who had never risked a scratch, themselves, denouncing him as a coward.  The local Dogberrys of the tribunals would fire off their little stock of gibes and platitudes upon him, propound with owlish solemnity the new Christianity, abuse him and condemn him, without listening to him.  Jeering mobs would follow him through the streets.  More than once, of late, she had encountered such crowds made up of shrieking girls and foul-mouthed men, surging round some white-faced youngster while the well-dressed passers-by looked on and grinned.

She came to him and stood over him with her hands upon his shoulders.

“Must you, dear?” she said.  “Can’t you reconcile it to yourself—­to go on with your work of mercy, of saving poor folks’ lives?”

He raised his eyes to hers.  The shadow that, to her fancy, had always rested there seemed to have departed.  A light had come to them.

“There are more important things than saving men’s bodies.  You think that, don’t you?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered.  “I won’t try to hold you back, dear, if you think you can do that.”

He caught her hands and held them.

“I wanted to be a coward,” he said, “to keep out of the fight.  I thought of the shame, of the petty persecutions—­that even you might despise me.  But I couldn’t.  I was always seeing His face before me with His beautiful tender eyes, and the blood drops on His brow.  It is He alone can save the world.  It is perishing for want of love; and by a little suffering I might be able to help Him.  And then one night—­I suppose it was a piece of driftwood—­there rose up out of the sea a little cross that seemed to call to me to stretch out my hand and grasp it, and gird it to my side.”

He had risen.  “Don’t you see,” he said.  “It is only by suffering that one can help Him.  It is the sword that He has chosen—­by which one day He will conquer the world.  And this is such a splendid opportunity to fight for Him.  It would be like deserting Him on the eve of a great battle.”

She looked into his eager, hopeful eyes.  Yes, it had always been so—­it always would be, to the end.  Not priests and prophets, but ever that little scattered band of glad sufferers for His sake would be His army.  His weapon still the cross, till the victory should be won.