“I’m glad to meet you—­although our meeting might have been contrived less precipitously.  This is Sergeant Marigold, late R.F.A., who does me the honour of looking after me.  And this is Major Boyce.”

Observe the little devil of malice that made me put Marigold first.

“Of the Rifles?”

A quick gleam of admiration showed in the boy’s eyes as he saluted.  No soldier could be stationed at Wellingsford without hearing of the hero of the neighbourhood.  A great hay waggon came lumbering down the road and pulled up, there being no room for it to pass.  This put an end to social amenities.  Brown mounted his detested charger and trotted off.  Marigold transferred me to Boyce’s car.  Several pairs of brawny arms righted the two-seater and Boyce and I drove off, leaving Marigold waiting with his usual stony patience for the promised tow.  On the way Boyce talked gaily of Marigold’s gallantry, of the boy’s spirit, of the idiotic way in which impossible horses were being foisted on newly formed cavalry units.  When we drew up at my front door, it occurred to me that there was no Marigold in attendance.

“How the deuce,” said I, “am I going to get out?”

Boyce laughed.  “I don’t think I’ll drop you.”

His great arms picked me up with ease.  But while he was carrying me I experienced a singular physical revolt.  I loathed his grip.  I loathed the enforced personal contact.  Even after he had deposited me—­very skilfully and gently—­in my wheel-chair in the hall, I hated the lingering sense of his touch.  He owed his whisky and soda to the most elementary instinct of hospitality.  Besides, he was off the next day, back to the trenches and the hell of battle, and I had to bid him good-bye and God-speed.  But when he went, I felt glad, very glad, as though relieved of some dreadful presence.  My old distrust and dislike returned increased a thousandfold.

It was only when he got my frail body in his arms, which I realized were twice as strong as my good Marigold’s, that I felt the ghastly and irrational revulsion.  The only thing to which I can liken it, although it seems ludicrous, is what I imagine to be the instinctive recoil of a woman who feels on her body the touch of antipathetic hands.  I know that my malady has made me a bit supersensitive.  But my vanity has prided itself on keeping up a rugged spirit in a fool of a body, so I hated myself for giving way to morbid sensations.  All the same, I felt that if I were alone in a burning house, and there were no one but Leonard Boyce to save me, I should prefer incineration to rescue.

And now I will tell you why I have hesitated to give a place in this chronicle to the incident of the broken-down car and the runaway horse.