“All right,” he said.  “I’ll come to the point.  I shan’t see you again.  I’m going out in command.  Thank God we’re in the thick of it.  Round about Loos.  It’s a thousand to one I’ll be killed.  Life doesn’t matter much to me, in spite of what you may think.  There are only two people on God’s earth I care for.  One, of course, is my old mother.  The other is Betty Fairfax—­I mean Betty Connor.  I spoke to you once about her—­after I had met her here—­and I gave you to understand that I had broken off our engagement from conscientious motives.  It was an awkward position and I had to say something.  As a matter of fact I acted abominably.  But I couldn’t help it.”  The corners of his lips suddenly worked in the odd little twitch.  “Sometimes circumstances, especially if a man’s own damn foolishness has contrived them, tie him hand and foot.  Sometimes physical instincts that he can’t control.”  He narrowed his eyes and bent forward, looking at me intently, and he repeated the phrase slowly—­“Physical instincts that he can’t control-”

Was he referring to the incident of yesterday?  I thought so.  I also believed it was the motive power of this strangely intimate conversation.

He rose again as though restless, and once more went to the window and seemed to seek inspiration or decision from the sight of my roses.  After a short while he turned and dragged up from his neck a slim chain at the end of which hung a round object in a talc case.  This he unfastened and threw on the table in front of me.

“Do you know what that is?”

“Yes,” said I.  “Your identification disc.”

“Look on the other side.”

I took it up and found that the reverse contained the head cut out from some photograph of Betty.  After I had handed back the locket, he slipped it on the chain and dropped it beneath his collar.

“I’m not a damned fool,” said he.

I nodded understandingly.  No one would have accused him of mawkish sentiment.  The woman whose portrait he wore night and day next his skin was the woman he loved.  He had no other way of proving his sincerity than by exhibiting the token.

“I see,” said I.  “What do you propose to do?”

“I’ve told you.  The V.C. or—­” He snapped his fingers.

“But if it’s the V.C. and a Brigade, and perhaps a Division—­if it’s everything else imaginable except—­“I snapped my fingers in imitation—­“What then?”

Again the hateful twitch of the lips, which he quickly dissimulated in a smile.

“I’ll begin to try to be a brave man.”  He lit another cigarette.  “But all that, my dear Meredyth,” he continued, “is away from the point.  If I live, I’ll ask you to forget this rotten palaver.  But I have a feeling that I shan’t come back.  Something tells me that my particular form of extermination will be a head knocked into slush.  I’m absolutely certain that I shall never see you again.  Oh, I’m not morbid,” he said, as I raised a protesting hand.  “You’re an old soldier and know what these premonitions are.  When I came in—­before I had finally made up my mind to pan out to you like this—­I felt like a boy who has been made captain of the school.  But all the same, I know I shan’t see you again.  So I want you to promise me two things—­quite honourable and easy.”