about broken hearts, stricken women, diseased babies, infant mortality; all the hell of suffering behind the lines. May God curse all war devils!"
He put his hand on my shoulder and said in a very solemn way:
"After this thing is finished—this grisly business—you and I, and all men of goodwill, must put our heads together to prevent it happening again. I dedicate whatever life I have to that."
He seemed to have a vision of hope.
"There are lots of good fellows in the world. Wickham Brand is one of 'em. Charles Fortune is another. One finds them everywhere on your side and mine. Surely we can get together when peace comes, and make a better system, somehow."
"Not easy, Doctor."
He laughed at me.
"I hate your pessimism!. . . We must get a message to Pierre Nesle. . . . Good night, sonny!"
On the way back to my billet I passed young Clatworthy. He was too engrossed to see me, having his arm round a girl who was standing with him under an unlighted lamp-post. She was looking up into his face on which the moonlight shone—a pretty creature, I thought.
"Je t'adore!" she murmured as I passed quite close; and Clatworthy kissed her.
I knew the boy's mother and sisters, and wondered what they would think of him if they saw him now with this little street-walker. To them Cyril was a white knight sans peur et sans reproche. The war had not improved him. He was no longer the healthy lad who had been captain of his school, with all his ambition in sport, as I had known him five years before. Sometimes,
