On the other hand, for the sake of principle, reparation for injustice, I continued to like the fellow and found pleasure in his company.  For one thing, I hankered after the smoke and smell and din of the front, and Boyce succeeded more than anyone else in satisfying my appetite.  While he talked, as he did freely with me alone, I got near to the grim essence of things.  Also, with the aid of rough military maps, he made actions and strategical movements of which newspaper accounts had given me but a confused notion, as clear as if I had been a chief of staff.  Often he went to considerable trouble in obtaining special information.  He appeared to set himself out to win my esteem.  Now a cripple is very sensitive to kindness.  I could not reject his overtures.  What interested motive could he have in seeking out a useless hulk like me?  On the first opportunity I told Betty of the new friendship, having a twinge or two of conscience lest it might appear to her disloyal.

“But why in the world shouldn’t you see him, dear?” she said, open-eyed.  “He brings the breath of battle to you and gives you fresh life.  You’re looking ever so much better the last few days.  The only thing is,” she added, turning her head away, “that I don’t want to run the risk of meeting him again.”

Naturally I took precautions against such an occurrence.  The circumstances of their last meeting at my house lingered unpleasantly in my mind.  Perhaps, for Betty’s sake, I ought to have turned a cold shoulder on Boyce.  But when you have done a man a foul injustice for years, you must make him some kind of secret reparation.  So, by making him welcome, I did what I could.

Now I don’t know whether I ought to set down a trivial incident mentioned in my diary under the date of the 15th August, the day before Boyce left Wellingsford to join his regiment in France.  In writing an account of other people’s lives it is difficult to know what to put in and what to leave out.  If you bring in your own predilections or prejudices or speculations concerning them, you must convey a distorted impression.  You lie about them unconsciously.  A fact is a fact, and, if it is important, ought to be recorded.  But when you are not sure whether it is a fact or not, what are you to do?

Perhaps I had better narrate what happened and tell you afterwards why I hesitate.

Marigold had driven me over to Godbury, where I had business connected with a County Territorial Association, and we were returning home.  It was a moist, horrible, depressing August day.  A slimy, sticky day.  Clouds hung low over the reeking earth.  The honest rain had ceased, but wet drops dribbled from the leaves of the trees and the branches and trunks exuded moisture.  The thatched roofs of cottages were dank.  In front gardens roses and hollyhocks drooped sodden.  The very droves of steers coming from market sweated in the muggy air.  The good slush of the once dusty