Even That Which He Hath

Roy Glashan's Library
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BERTRAM ATKEY

EVEN THAT WHICH HE HATH

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Based on a vintage poster

First published in The Story-teller, May 1920

Reprinted in Everybody's Magazine, March 1922
(this version)

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2022
Version Date: 2022-08-17

Produced by Gordon Hobley and Roy Glashan

All content added by RGL is proprietary and protected by copyright.

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The Story-teller, May 1920, with "Even That Which He Hath"

Everybody's Magazine, March 1922, with "Even That Which He Hath"

"For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not,
from him shall be taken even that which he hath." — Mark 4:25

What do you think would happen in your absence if you were put
down as dead? What would you find of you suddenly returned?

THE gathering horde that had surged and eddied in one swift flurry behind the alms-grating of the Turkish prison perceived that the officer from the American battleship—for they knew mysteriously whence he came, though no man had seemed to tell them—had given them all the cigarettes his case contained, and so fell back for a moment to hover, like kites, round those heirs of fortune who had achieved possession of one, or part of one. A deft snatch in a Turkish prison has been known to repay heavily the bold man who makes it.

Thus, of all that ill-starred crowd, there was but one man. ragged, hairy and appallingly unclean, who, remaining at the bars, staring out, seemed at that moment an available recipient for the lone cigar which the commander produced.

"Here you are," said the officer, adding, under his breath, "And I hope you can appreciate a bit of good tobacco."

The American stiffened, his jaw rigid. English! Good English—from a member of that herd! His black brows knotted themselves in a sudden frown. "Are you an Englishman?"

The eyes of the man shone dully and then fastened themselves on the uniform of the naval man.

"A prisoner of war! But, man, the war's over—finished—long ago! Nearly six months. What are you doing here?" Under Van Alstyn's voice rasped a note of cold anger that was almost ferocity. "Who are you?

"I—was a British officer—yes—" The hands of the victim were trembling shockingly, so that the cigar fell to the earthen floor, to be snatched instantly by the brown claw of an Arab cutthroat. "They—you know, they must have forgotten me." said the man behind the bars very hurriedly. "Perhaps—if you don't mind—if it's not troubling you—you could make representations—my name's Trask—Lieutenant John Trask. M.T.R.A.S.C.—captured at Kui." He drew in his breath jerkily. "I—I've had a baddish time—so, if you could—"

He appeared to think that the look on the other's face was one of anger at his request.

"Excuse my holding you up like this"—he poured it out with a faltering volubility—"but the fact is I'm a bit rattled, you know—and I'm not fit—but do please, for God's sake, do something—"

Commander Van Alstyn smiled—but it was not an attractive smile. Some men, and they usually are men indeed, smile when they are most dangerous. What remained of Lieutenant John Trask, M.T.R.A.S.C, must have understood the cold rage in the eyes of the naval man, for he thrust his filthy hand through the bars.

"Do it? Make your mind easy about that. I'm not losing sight of you till I've got you under a civilized flag. You can gamble on that. Here"—he thrust his last cigar and a box of matches through the bars—"light that."

The prisoner of war, steadied by the other's resolute and cool confidence, lit the cigar and drank, rather than smoked it.

The prisoner listened with strained intensity to the crisp, curt orders which the commander gave the two gunners, noted the sailorly way in which they received them, and then relaxed. All was well. This was business. There was nothing of the too leisurely East about these men. He realized that—and because he was a man of many disappointments, who had come through a bad and bitter time, the reaction caught him by the throat.

The two painful tears that, in spite of the utmost he could do to hold them, forced themselves through his hot lids, told Van Alstyn more than many words.

"It is only a matter of minutes between you and either the deck of an American battleship or the security of the British Military Headquarters," he said, as the gunners started off.

But so thorough, so ferocious and inexorable had been the breaking of the Englishman's spirit that, for a little, he could not wholly assure himself there was no possibility of error.

"You—are sure that there will be no hitch? You see, I don't think I could stand much more of this."

"You may take it," he said levelly, "that whether your military authorities move at once or whether they do not move until they have appointed a court of inquiry to consider it, your time in this particular Turkish hell is finished. I want you out of this—and I want you out quick!"

Long before the cigar was half smoked there came two British officers in a gliding Daimler, together with certain Turks of position, the latter exuding nebulous apologies and very anxious to explain.

"Explanations of things which explain themselves irritate me," he said to the suave and pliant official who appeared to be chief of the Turkish party. He pointed a lean brown finger at the man behind the alms-gate. "There is an officer of the allied nations who has been held a prisoner of war for six months after the signing of the armistice." Under his voice ran, like a warning, a panther-note that made the red-tabbed ones stare. "Release him! It is an order!"

He saluted Van Alstyn with the most careful nicety, but the American commander gripped his indescribably dirty hand and presented him to his countrymen.

The gate swung back, and Lieutenant John Trask
came out into the sunshine. He saluted Van Alstyn
with the most careful nicety, but the American
commander gripped his indescribably dirty hand.

BUT all that was past and done with, and now John Trask was very near his home. He sat very silent in the corner of the railway carriage, staring out from the slowing train at all those well-remembered woodlands and downs, those familiar landmarks he had never expected to see again.

The train stopped and Trask stepped out—a plain Royal Army Service Corps junior officer without decorations, in a none too well-cut uniform purchased from a somewhat depleted ordnance department in southern Europe.

To him, with outstretched hands, came a handsome, boyish and very dashing officer of another type, another kind, in the uniform of an Air-Force major—his younger and only brother.

"Come on, old man," he said, with something of an effort at breeziness; "I've got the two-seater outside." He turned to the porter. "Send the valise up by the next cart," he said, and they went out.

"You've been foully unlucky, Jack. I'm damned sorry. What were our people thinking about down there? I should think they would have had the sense to know that quite the first thing necessary after the armistice would be to search those Turkish camps and prisons. How did you get into a prison of that kind, anyhow—civilian jail, wasn't it?"

"Oh. I hit a man—early on—soon after Kut. One of those attached German officers. He asked for it for a long time—and got it. But I was lucky not to be shot. I paid for it—he saw to that. He got me separated from our lot and selected my prison himself. He stole my identity—saw that I was fitted out in the rags of a Turkish beggar. He made me a nameless prisoner—that American navy man was the first I've ever spoken to who believed I was an English officer. The German was killed by his own men a year ago. Still, it's all over now. It was just as well that battle-ship put in there when she did—I should have gone mad in another week of it. The scum in that prison! Geoff, I know—I lived with ii long enough. I want to forget the beasts. You've got on. You were only twenty when I left England, weren't you?"

"Oh, things have come my way. I was second loot for a long time, knocking about on the Plain until I transferred to the K.N.A.S.—as it was then, R.A.F. now. you know. Since then I've worked mainly in the North Sea and the Belgian coast—over Ostend and Zeebrugge. And things came rather my way. I had the luck to get over a Zepp early on, and she brought me my D.S.O. The other things seemed to crop up. Of course I've had my moments—but on the whole my luck has been rather startling. It looks to me as if all the good luck that was reserved for the Trask family was dumped on me—and the bad on you."

"So it goes! Geoff." he said quietly. "But you've done things—and I've done nothing worth mentioning."

"Oh, that be damned for a tale, old man!" said the ace uncomfortably. "A man can't do more than obey an order honestly. How do you like the car? Late nineteen-fourteen De Dion cabriolet coupe. Just done up. She's worth a fabulous figure now."

"Right-o! That's a comfortable seat, isn't it? Sanda loves to curl up in it. But she's told you about it, of course. She's not quite fit—a cold or something—nothing serious. I want to have a chat with you later about Sanda—later."

John Trask glanced sideways at his brother. Was it his fancy, or had Geoff spoken rather hurriedly—even a shade uncomfortably? He was looking straight ahead, driving carefully.

"All right. Do you know, Geoff, I haven't had a line from Sanda for ages—bar the telegram congratulating me at Taranto. After a few months I gave up expecting one. I guessed that I had been reported wounded and missing. I suppose everybody here thought I was dead."

The road gave, at that moment, on to a village street, with a wide strip of green, goose-cropped common on one side. Halfway down this common at the edge facing the road was a little simply-designed erection in oak—as it were a notice-board with a little roof over it. Geoffrey Trask ran the car under it and pulled up before he answered his brother's question.

The shabby lieutenant looked. He realized that he was looking upon the village shrine—the Roll of the Dead.

IT was a long list, a long, long list for so small a place. From among the familiar names inscribed there, one leaped out:

It was very odd. It visited him with a sensation that was queerly blended of pride, of gratitude, of pain, of embarrassment and of relief. Now he heard Geoff answering his question.

The hands of the ace suddenly left the steering-wheel, and he turned to his brother.

"Jack. I want to say one thing—before we get borne. I want to ask you never to forget that every one thought you were—gone west—if—if—things should seem to be not quite as you think they should be."

"Just shake hands on that, Jack." The ace was strangely in earnest. They shook hands.

The local vicar, coming up, thought it was a grip to celebrate the necessity for deleting the lieutenant's name from the roll of the dead, and he came forward, smiling—a good-natured, broad-minded old man.

"Let me be the second to shake hands on it, Jack," he said. "If only one could paint out, one by one, those inscriptions! How are you, my boy? They treated you pretty badly in Turkey. We must make it up to you somehow—eh, Geoff?"

But his lips drooped ever so little as he spoke, and there was more of appeal in his voice as he addressed the young major than the situation seemed to call for.

The car stole forward and headed up the long hill to the wood-ringed manor that was home.

It was very quiet, wholly tranquil, on that sunny autumn day. Few were stirring in the village, for it was the hour before the midday meal, and the men were either in their workshops or in the fields. Here and there an old man basking on a door-step would cry a jerky recognition and welcome to the lieutenant whom they had known from childhood, or a woman snatching five minutes' gossip with a neighbor would smile and wave to the man who was not dead.

They were running now on soft sandy soil, between wide strips of rabbit-pocked turf, edged with turfy banks. Behind the banks were dense masses of rhododendrons, crowding under towering and ancient oaks.

A long curve unfolded for them the wide park, dotted with grazing cows; the lake, satin-smooth and steel-bright under the sun; and, lastly, beyond the lake, the old red manor-house set in a patch of autumn color above a double tier of green terraces.

Something caught the lieutenant by the throat as he gazed at all this which was his home. He could not speak—and Geoff said nothing.

So they drove in silence to the place where his people awaited him and perhaps, if her cold permitted, Sanda—Sanda—and all the love-giving, the love-receiving, the sheer joy of Sanda, who had waited so long for him, and for whom he had well-nigh broken his heart. Home—his own people—and his betrothed!

For one instant a pang of affectionate regret that his brother was not so richly endowed bothered him, but it passed, for that was equivalent to the moth, the dusty footman, grieving for the butterfly, the purple emperor. John Trask had no illusions about himself. He did not need to be placed before a mirror to know that physically, beside the good-looking, exquisitely-groomed, plentifully decorated and famous ace, he loomed small. The R.A.S.C. lieutenant could never have hoped to win the resounding triumphs of his brother. That was in the nature of things—in the nature of war; he knew that.

The lieutenant smiled as he realized how little Geoff needed sympathy. Why, with his record, his dash, his personal beauty, he could select at leisure a Sanda from among the very élite of the loveliness and sweetness of the country.

All was well—except for the fact of Sanda's cold and consequent seclusion, and perhaps—and perhaps—that omen of the shrine, if one believed in omens.

DURING his first twenty-four hours at home, John Trask learned that his death had meant more than an inscription upon a shrine. There were certain things that jarred a little, though on this, his first day, he did not go deeper than the surface.

And though these things brought a certain odd pang, it was not keen, nor did it endure for more than a space of minutes. He was not disposed to be critical. Indeed, he joked mildly about it at dinner on that first evening.

"Well." he said, reveling in the sheer physical comfort of his home and his freedom, "everybody seems to have made arrangements for carrying on without me. But, as Mark Twain said, the report of my death has been greatly exaggerated, and I insist on butting in again."

They laughed with him, Geoff and Sir John, his father. But ihey did not laugh very much, nor was their merriment quite comfortable.

And Violet, his eighteen-year-old sister, did not laugh at all. She flushed a little, and after a quick, involuntary glance at him, dropped her eyes to her dessert. Trask saw the glance.

Across the corner of the table they smiled at each other. And he saw that, though she smiled, there was only pain in her eyes—pain that he only glimpsed as it were in passing because of the sudden tears that dimmed them, and because she quickly looked down again to hide them. Geoff rose suddenly, glancing at his wrist-watch.

"Time I was off," he said. "I've only got fifteen minutes to gel to the station."

He was reporting back to duty early next morning, for he was not yet demobilized.

"Good-by, my boy. You think you'll be out of the service in time for the shooting?"

The ace shook hands with his father, and it was with a pride that was almost arrogant that the older man stared into the eyes of his younger son as they exchanged grips. Never had Sir John looked at his heir with that expression.

"You old road-hog!" said Jack affectionately. "You're doing forty miles an hour. These flying people think they own the earth as well as the air—don't they, Vi? You'll be getting run in!"

"Oh, everybody loves us," said Geoff lightly. "They give us—at least they used to—lots of privileges and things."

"And what they don't give you—you take," said Vi quietly—so quietly that, in the sudden grind of brakes as Geoff steadied for the corner, only John Trask heard what she said. But it conveyed to him nothing that mattered, though it stuck in his mind.

HE asked her about it when the little car was humming up the hill on the return journey.

"I was rather glad Geoff didn't hear you say that about taking what they wanted, Vi. It sounded rather as though you meant it, I thought."

"Oh, I don't know that—they were wonderful. And it seems rather mean to crab them; but some of them do expect full measure and overflowing. Geoff does, for one."

"He is not like he used to be." She spoke hotly. "He's only charming when he gets his own way. But he can be very much the other way when he likes. I know"—her voice dropped to an odd, flat note—"and soon you will know, too."

He looked at her, astonished at her sudden passion. She was staring at him. He could see that she was very pale.

"It's just a phase, Vi—it will pass. Things have been pretty badly unsettled. But they will readjust themselves. You wait and see."

"Her cold is a little better. The doctor thinks it is not influenza," said the girl.

"Ah! Will you take the car on? I will go up there. She may be fit enough to see me."

He could not see in that dim light the expression on her face as, waving his hand, he turned away.

The Evesmoors, mother and daughter, lived about a quarter of a mile away, at Mistlands, a pretty, tiny place, belonging to Sir John Trask. They were not rich, but a moderate private income plus a widow's pension—Colonel Evesmoor had been among the very first Mons casualties—made them comfortable.

When they had first come to the house, every one had said that Sanda would inevitably marry soon. Her dark and glowing beauty, with the wide experience and charming tact of her mother, made that a foregone conclusion. Long before John Trask left England for the East, Sanda was betrothed to him.

HE had not seen her for three years, but he was sure, as he swung along the bridle-path, the short cut to her home, that she would be more lovely and perfect than ever. Brilliant, beautiful, an outdoor girl, a keen rider, with a passion for dogs of the sporting type and a hunting-woman's admiration for horses and hounds, strong and virile, yet she had her quieter moods. There had been many memorable pre-war hours in the studio and music-room, a beautiful little building in the park which Jack had erected with a legacy from his mother, and in which he spent most of his indoor time—hours when Sanda would seem to forget her sport and, like a resting Diana, would bask upon cushions, reading, or listening to him playing, or letting him paint her—wonderful hours that made the wet days welcome.

There had been many and many an hour when he had told himself that that was past and dead and done with, that there was no hope of ever again knowing those delights.

And now—here he was, walking again through the familiar woodland—alive, whole, sane—shaken a little with privation, but fit again, aged a little with suffering, but his own man, with his life before him.

Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death he had come and most miraculously all was well with him.

But as he entered the darker shadows of the strip of wood through which he had to pass before he came out at the gate to Sanda's, strangely his exaltation left him, and he was aware of an oppression. He stood for a moment, puzzled.

All these good things awaiting him—this superabundance—wasn't it too good to be true? Love, health, plentiful means, happiness—a vista of perhaps forty years of joyous life! And, out there, lying silently, silently, in their shallow graves, the hundreds of thousands, the millions—men who had been on the threshold of happiness—men who had had fortunes awaiting their disposition, wives awaiting their return, ambitions awaiting their fruition, children awaiting their coming—dead, all dead! Better men than he.

"I only take what is given me. If it is good, so much the better for me. If it had been ill, I should have been prepared to put up with it," he said half aloud.

For a moment he was startled at the sound of his voice. And, oddly, there came to him a strange sense of having made a compact.

He had implied that he was entitled to enjoy the good to which he had returned, because, if it had been ill, he would have been prepared to endure it. That was it. He nodded; his mind cleared, and so stepped on through the shadows.

But there was to be nothing of the love of Sanda or of fond greeting or welcome that night.

The unfamiliar maid servant who opened the door told him that Miss Sanda was a little better but sleeping—and that Mrs. Evesmoor, too, had gone to bed.

He looked back at the house as he walked to the little gate that gave on to the woods. It was silent and dark save for one window—the closed and curtained window of Sanda's room. This glowed dimly—as if the room were illumined by some little, low light that was only just enough to ameliorate a darkness that was profound.

He pictured her sleeping—flushed and beautiful, with loosened hair—smiled a little, and went on.

Inside the room. Sanda Evesmoor, fully dressed, wide-eyed, was staring at the maid who was recapitulating exactly, word for word, all that Trask had said. Except for the dark shadows under her eyes, she was as lovely as he had pictured her; but it was not the loveliness which he had known and treasured, though he was fated to know this new, somber and subtly tragic beauty better, far better than the charm of the old days.

As he came out into the park, he glanced at his watch. It was still early, and there was time for him to go to his studio.

OF all places, it was in his studio and music-room that the thoughts of John Trask during the arid years of captivity had dwelt longest, and to which they had returned most often. He was of a different type from his father and Geoff, for he was an artist, whereas they were first and foremost sportsmen. For the music and painting of John Trask, along with his well-loved little temple of art, they had in their virile souls only a species of indulgent, lofty disdain.

John Trask had built the studio and music-room at his own expense. He had spent almost the whole of a comfortable little legacy from his mother upon it; he had designed it with extraordinary care, and, indeed, had worked upon parts of it with his own hands. It had been costly, but it meant to him all that Geoff's hunters and guns and the big racing car (bought with his legacy) had meant to Geoff—and perhaps more. For every taut and thrilling hour which Geoff had spent in the saddle, at the wheel or behind his twelve-bore. John Trask had spent an hour with his work, his dreams, his strivings for expression in music or upon canvas, in his studio.

After the place where Sanda was, it was to him the very heart of home. And now, quiet and alone—as at any time he would have desired it—he was going to re-enter it, return to it and renew the tranquil joy of it.

But as he approached it across the short springy turf of the park, he saw that it was brightly lighted and he heard laughter and music there.

He was not surprised, for he remembered now that, in the midst of a flow of rather excited conversation, quick questionings and laughing answers that followed his home-coming, Geoff had said carelessly that the studio had been altered a little and was occupied, but he had not gone deeply into it, for there were his father and Vi with questions awaiting.

But as he drew nearer the studio, his spirits sank and the cold fingers of a coming disappointment pressed upon his senses like the first chill touch of an approaching frost. For he heard now that the laughter was raucous and the music was worse.

Somebody was singing a music-hall song of the most hackneyed type, and the strummed accompaniment was in keeping with the words.

It jarred abominably—worse, it cut like a whip-lash. Wasn't there room enough and to spare for this sort of thing elsewhere? John Trask was not a prig. He knew that the great majority of people liked this form of amusement, that it appeared to do them no harm, but, on the contrary, seemed, by some curious alchemy, to refresh them, do them good and send them, with a new vigor, to their work. After all, it was more or less harmless—but why should it invade his sanctuary?

He controlled without difficulty a sharp inclination to anger, forced himself to shrug his shoulders—after all, things could soon he rearranged—went up to a window, half opened to the cool air, from which cigar smoke was oozing, and looked in.

The curtains rendered him not easily visible from the brilliantly-lighted room. It had once been his music-room—a large and lofty apartment decorated in a carefully worked-out scheme of soft, clear whites, yellows and grays.

He gulped and set his teeth as he saw how it had been altered. His anger surged up, swelling, but he thrust it down.

He saw that the company inside the room was chiefly of men: though there were four women whom he recognized—the wife and daughter of the trainer of Geoff's and his father's race-horses, and the wives of the steward and of the chief jockey, a fairly well-known rider upon whose services Sir John had the first claim.

They were enjoying themselves—a little coterie of the higher grade of Sir John's employees—the trainer, the steward, two or three of the bigger tenant-farmers, a couple of jockeys and the head gamekeeper—a man of weight on that sporting estate. There was whisky and soda going, cigars and—music. One of the jockeys had just been singing, and his humor had been successful. That was all. There was not an ounce of harm in the whole business—hundreds of thousands of families were doing the same everywhere.

It was not very elevating perhaps, but it was very human and quite normal. The trainer, who, the lieutenant supposed, was now living in the altered studio, was giving a little musical evening. Only—it jarred.

"But they weren't using my piano," he said mechanically. "That's something." He wondered what had happened to his piano.

He thought, too, that the studio was enlarged—a place that he suspected was intended for a kitchen and scullery had been built on.

For a long time he stared dumbly at it. And when presently he turned away, his anger had been conquered. It was gone—quite gone. But it had left pain in its place.

"They thought I was dead," he said to himself over and over again. "And Geoff wanted a house for Simpson." He remembered that there always had been an intention to house the trainer better some day. "But, all the same, I wouldn't have ruined the studio if it had been Geoff's. I suppose that's what Vi meant. And where are my pictures? And the collection of old music manuscripts? Surely they wouldn't have sold them—so soon—"

But there was no conviction of that in his heart as he hurried across the park. He knew, though he said with his lips that it was impossible, that his carefully acquired pictures and manuscripts were probably sold and dispersed.

Why not? He had been dead; his name was on the roll of honor, and—and Simpson the trainer had needed a better house.

But Vi was waiting for him, curled up in a settee by the fire which burned in the big hall in spite of the season.

"No. She was asleep. But she is getting better." he said, controlling his voice. "And I've had a look at the studio."

"Poor old Jack!" she said, paused, then added, "But, at any rate, you will have the pleasure of putting it right again." She waited a moment. "I did what I could to—to—stop it, Jack. But they are so—impulsive." Her voice rang a little sharply. "Geoff should have warned you—he should have been frank. He could easily have told you that he had made a great alteration—and have offered to restore things." Her voice quivered with anger. "To have wrecked that beautiful little place for the sake of his horses and to have shirked telling you! It's selfish. He has been spoiled—spoiled!"

"Dear old Vi," he said, "don't take it too seriously. It—it's of no consequence. There will be the pleasure of reconstructing it."

"Oh, you lake things too philosophically, Jack!" she cried. "Are you going to be satisfied to spend the whole of your life reconstructing what should never had been wrecked? To creep about the ruins like an ant? You will find plenty of ruins! Jack, they have treated you—your memory—shame—" She stopped suddenly, catching herself up. "Not very well," she finished lamely, kissed him quickly and went to bed.

He stared, wondering. After a while, he sat down and took out a cigar, gazing into the fire.

What had she meant by "spending the whole of his life in reconstructing"? Was anything else wrecked? "You will find plenty of ruins!" she had cried out. But he had possessed so few things capable of ruin—only his studio, his collection, Sanda.

If that were so, then indeed he might as well have remained in Constantinople. He tried to thrust the thought away from him. But it clung. He rose and hurried to his bedroom. Impalpable as fear, cold as frost, his sudden doubt and terror went with him. Sanda?

ALTHOUGH Violet Trask possessed many instincts akin to those of her elder brother, she also possessed the fighting spirit of Geoff. She showed it at breakfast on the following morning, when, having carefully studied the handwriting on the envelopes of her letters and decided whom they were from, she had arranged them in a neat pile in the order in which she purposed opening them.

"It's jolly having you back, Jack," she said, looking up from her fish. Her tone was cheerfully careless. "There is quite a lot of reconstruction to do," she continued. "I suppose you'll take a fiendish delight in pulling down that ghastly kitchen Geoff has built on to the studio. And I am sure I shall—you'll let me help, I suppose. And father—you'll help kick the horrible place down, won't you, daddy?" She did not wait tor an answer. "How appalling it must have been for you. Jack, last night!" She looked at Sir John. "Father, he went out quietly last night to look at his studio, and he found Simpson having a little musical evening with a few friends. Fancy listening to Griffen, the jockey, singing the latest comic song in the room where one had hoped to look through one's collection of music manuscripts again!"

Sir John winced a little, his forehead creasing, but said nothing. In his heart, in his very bones, he felt that the building in the park was for the first time being put to a sensible use. Music? Wasn't there plenty of room in the house for music? He resented the implied sneer at Simpson, the trainer—a good, honest, hard-working man who had probably been up at least five hours on behalf of himself and Geoff—and at Griffen, who in a year or two would be one of the finest jockeys that ever drove a winner past the post. Nevertheless, he said nothing. He had long ago learned that the wise man speaks last. He waited for Jack.

But the soul and the spirit of the lieutenant was fresh from the hand of the Turk and his German overseer. Never too self-assertive, John Trask was now less so than ever. Those Oriental and Hun rough-riders of men had humbled him more than a man should be humbled.

He hesitated—hung—shirked the encouragement in his sister's eyes and said nothing.

Deliberately Violet waited for the comment from her father which her little speech had invited.

"Jack—of course. Jack must do as he thinks best," said the baronet, without enthusiasm. It sounded flat, and he must have felt it to be so, for he added: "I'm afraid you'll find a number of alterations, Jack, my boy—Dr—things gone and so on. It's due to that tragic mistake, of course. Your tastes and Geoff's differ—you'll have to talk things over with him when he's demobilized—meet each other—give and take, eh? Arrange about the studio—mutually. Meantime, draw on me for what you want—have a talk with Leigh. Yes; that's a sound idea. See Leigh as soon as you can, Jack."

He turned to his breakfast. Across the table Violet stared significantly at her brother—then began to open her letters.

BUT she had not finished. With the intuition of eighteen—often swifter though frequently less accurate than that of later years—she had learned how it was with Jack. He had been deprived of so much in captivity that he had acquired the habit of doing without even that to which he was entitled.

To her—fearless, uncurbed, high-spirited, with a passion for fairness—it seemed that Jack was in need of protection, until he had cast off the hall-mark of the Hun. She knew that he was longing to ask about the fate of his pictures and manuscripts, but either by reason of a supersensitiveness or because of the new, strange, nervous timidity which now characterized him, he was hesitating.

But Violet did not hesitate. She looked at the matter with the pitiless logic of youth. The things that were gone must be restored to Jack. She spoke bluntly.

"What are you going to do about getting back your pictures and music manuscripts, Jack?"

"You had better see Leigh about them, my boy. He has full instructions about money. I believe they were bought by three or four collectors and a few dealers. It was a great pity." He spoke with an effort. "But nobody else understood the music manuscripts, and—the house is full of pictures already. If you have to pay the buyers a profit to get them back, don't hesitate."

"You will go to town, I suppose, Jack, to find them?" asked his sister. "Well, we'll have that beastly kitchen obliterated from the studio for you by the time you are back—won't we, father? I'll write to Geoff to-night."

"The poor dear simply can't help grudging the studio," said Violet. "He feels that any loft or lumber-room would be good enough for your collection. He doesn't mean to be grudging—but it's like sheer waste to him and Geoff. All the same, I am determined that you shall have the studio, at any rate, back again."

"Oh, I don't know, Jack. But I can assure you that I will not allow others to possess themselves of what is his—and only his—whether he is dead or alive—" She broke off sharply, flushing painfully, seized her letters and carried them off.

THAT day John Trask wrote to Sanda, explaining his absence and asking her to telegraph as soon as she could receive him. In the afternoon he went to London, there to recover all that he could of his dispersed collection. But he went without any zest or keenness. There was an oppression upon his soul—an oppression that grew.

Within forty-eight hours there had sprung up in his mind a great fear that all was not well with Sanda.

Why should she not have seen him? A cold? What was a cold to one who had seen men rot to death beside him with typhus, cholera, consumption?

There was a mystery somewhere—and he was afraid of it. He tried to think it out, but he arrived at nothing. He could not think as clearly as once he had been capable of thinking. He had lost the habit of deep, clear thought during his captivity. That was it—that was what was wrong with him, he felt. His physical needs and trials had driven him into the habit of thinking of physical things—rations, rest, clothing, water for drinking and washing, the misery of lice and vermin, the desperate and hopeless scheming for something approximating to cleanliness, and the pitiful strategies to avoid punishments and cruelties. A long, long course of such thinking in the dusty heat of the Turkish day and the fetid darkness of the prison night had temporarily atrophied his brain in so far as it was capable of considering the varying aspects and problems of peaceful English countryside life. That was the conclusion to which he came, staring dully out of his hotel window.

He saw, or believed he saw, now the reason why this oppression had settled upon him. He had overrated himself—he had expected too much.

He had come up, as it were, from the grave—and that had been a mighty matter for him, epic, overwhelming. But he could not expect all England to drop everything and throw up its hands in wonder and joy.

After all, it was such a little thing—the merest grain of excitement, of joy—one R.A.S.C. lieutenant salved from the millions who could never be salved. His people had thought him dead; he had been reported dead, and, naturally, they had made their arrangements. Now he had returned—upsetting those arrangements. If he were patient, not expecting too much, everything would be readjusted. Geoff would arrange about Simpson and the studio; he would recover most of his collection; Sanda's cold would get better, and things would drop back to what they had been. So he decided and, a little cheered, went out to dine.

Almost the first man he noticed in the famous restaurant at which he dined was Geoff with a brother officer. They were entertaining two ladies. A pillar screened him from the party so that he was free to study them without being seen. It was clear to him from the beginning that Geoff was infatuated with his companion—a woman of a singular type of beauty—dark, dusky, broad-browed, with a curiously pointed chin and long, heavy-lidded, slightly oblique eyes, very dark and glowing. Her hair was black, and she was dressed in a black gown with an odd metallic sheen. It seemed to John Trask that she spoke softly, when she spoke at all, and she rarely smiled—a dark woman, singular, almost bizarre, with a veiled soul, mysterious. Yet there was a darkling fierceness and a suggestion of sheathed strength about her.

"She looks like a woman who has precipitated and survived some frightful tragedy in the seraglio of an Eastern king," thought John Trask uneasily. "There is knowledge in her eyes—yes, and a strange wisdom. She has either come down from a lofty place or has climbed up from some stupendous and terrible deeps. She will bring no happiness to Geoff—but she owns him, and he is satisfied to be owned."

The party did not dine long or elaborately. Though they did not hurry, they gave an impression that they were anxious to be gone. John Trask did not go over to them. Many eyes followed the party as they left. They seemed to be well known in that restaurant.

Trask learned from his waiter that the dark lady with Geoff was Trecis—yes; Trecis herself. The waiter appeared to take it quite as understood that monsieur knew who Trecis was. The lieutenant did not undeceive him. Another question or so gleaned an impression that she was to do with a so-called Egyptian ballet at one of the larger music-halls.

John Trask leaned back with a vague sensation of relief. No doubt Trecis—one did not use any ordinary prefix in speaking of her, it appeared—was going on to her ballet. Obviously.

Later, he saw her in the ballet—a wonderful, grotesque, barbarously passionate business which, in itself, failed to move him, though he saw that the bulk of the spectators hung upon it breathless.

AT the end of a fortnight he decided to go home. He had not succeeded in buying back any of the pictures or the old manuscripts. He would begin the collection all over again. Geoff had just been demobilized and was at home for the shooting. He had decided to shoot, too, and to ride—not that he felt any great keenness for these sports, but because he felt it would please his father. After the experiences of the last four years, John Trask found it easier to sink more of his inclinations, to set aside his own desires, than he had once found it. Suffering had taught him that, at least.

Then on the day before he was to leave came the letter from Sanda—the first he had received from her for over two years.

It was quite short, and in every respect precisely the letter he did not expect.

We shall be leaving here soon, but I don't think I can leave without seeing you—as I had Intended. Please come on Friday afternoon. If you can put out of your mind everything as it was with us before the war, yon will be glad to have done so.

That was all; but it caught his heart in a grip that seemed to stop its pulsing. For now, and by this, he knew that all was not well. He had known in his deep heart all the lime—from that moment under the shrine when he had noticed the odd droop of the vicar's smile and the appeal in his voice.

It seemed to him, as he sat in the flying express, that he had been living in dreams, without one clear thought, all the time he had been home. There had been an unreality; he had drifted, floated, without caring even to clutch at something firm or stable. As if he had been waiting—waiting! That was why the studio matter had not hurt him more; that was why he had found it easy to check his anger and to be what Violet had called "philosophical" about it. There was worse to come—his instinct had told him so. That was why he could take no real interest in recovering his lost col-lection. And it accounted for the oppression which had weighed upon him.

Sanda's letter divided the dull fog upon his mind like a sudden steel flashing through mist. He sat in his corner staring into vacancy.

But it was with a new clearness of mind that he stepped out into the September afternoon at his home station, nor did it abate during his quick walk to Sanda's house.

She was standing by a little table near the hearth, looking toward the door. He saw that she was dressed in black or in some loose material so dark that it was not less somber than black. She was paler than she had once been, paler and older, but as beautiful as ever—tall, graceful, swaying. He stumbled toward her.

"Sanda—" he said, reaching to her with both hands, and vaguely aware that her eyes were full of tears.

She caught his hands in hers—not in any gesture of welcome but as though to steady him, almost to hold him off.

"No, no!" she cried in a low voice. "Not like this—not like this!" For he would have taken her into his arms. "Look! Do you see this, Jack?"

She offered a closed white hand for his regard, and he came upon the gold hand of a wedding-ring.

"Yes. It is why I wrote to you—so that I could explain. Will you sit down. Jack, please? I won't lake long."

HE sat down, watching her as she took a low chair close to him. He was no longer suffering. All that singular, bright lucidity which had been his when he came to the house had vanished. This, even this, he knew, was not the whole of the suffering to which he had returned.

Sanda, the wonderful, the glorious, the star of all his dreams, the mental elixir which alone had kept the life in him during the prison-days, his hope, his very religion, was not for him after all!

And he was oddly unmoved. Before he had seen that ring or heard her explanation of it, he was almost unmanned in the joy of this meeting—now he was "philosophical." It was all in a line with earlier events—his studio ruined, his collection dispersed, and now Sanda was lost. Was there anything else to lose? A low, quiet voice in his heart seemed to respond that there was yet a valley of pain to traverse.

"Geoff seemed to change from a boy to a man—a most wonderful man—almost at once," she was saying. "At the beginning, he was just a big boy, delighting in a noisy, powerful motor-bicycle or a young horse. He went away for a little while, and when he returned he was transformed into a knight—an airman. He came soaring high over the park in a swift, graceful, hawk-like thing, and he showed us his mastery of it before he came down—looping, diving, spinning—most wonderful! And he had done such things—even so soon. He had destroyed a Zeppelin and was already decorated. They say he has a genius for flying, and I think that is true, and he had acquired a habit of mastery. I suppose that is what the daily contact with death teaches them—oh, I don't know why—why—why! I have thought so long and often about these things that my mind is only a medley. But I know that from the instant he alighted in the park, he intended to take me—it was in his eyes—and—God forgive me!—I was glad. That was after Kut. I don't ask you to forgive me; I couldn't expect that. I think I was bewitched. I went to London to visit some friends, but Geoff was posted to some anti-aircraft station down the Thames. He did not expect it—nor did I. It just happened in that way. He could come to town fairly often at times—and he did. I saw that I could not escape him—and I did not wish to. We went about together a good deal. It was all wild and unreal. There was a side of London life which was like a strange fever during the second half of the war—an 'eat, drink and be merry in case we die' spirit for the fighting men, and 'eat, drink and be merry in case they die' for us—the women. Then came the news that you were not among the British officers in Turkey, and you were reported dead. Geoff and I were married then at a registry office—we were mad, but not too mad to be ashamed to marry openly—so soon after—you—And we were very happy.

"So for two years we were married, and nobody knew. Geoff was winning new distinctions daily. He went to France and Belgium, then home for naval work, then back to Belgium and again to a coast station at home. It was just before the armistice that he met Trecis, and she—widowed me. Geoff forgot everything but that Egyptian sorceress. She has him in chains of steel. I have deserved it all. I did not respect your memory—and Geoff has been enchanted from me. Trecis will ruin him, and some day he will come back to me—burnt out He nearly did once—a few months ago. They quarreled, and he came to me again—but I could not keep him very long. But that is my sorrow—and you have too many sorrows of your own to deserve mine. That is all. I ought to have told you this when you came home, but I had not the courage. Forgive me. Jack; I have suffered—and I shall suffer a great deal more before it is finished. Don't blame Geoff. After all, he's only a boy—a boy made hard and careless by his familiarity with danger and death. He is not even bad; but he has been driven to form a habit of taking what he wants without heeding anything else. I suppose that is what one does when one never knows whether one's next hour may be the last hour. It is due to the war—the war!"

"Don't grieve because of me, Sanda dear," he said. "I understand. I have not bad a very good time, but it has taught me bow to endure things—to be what Violet calls 'philosophical'—"

He broke off as a sudden thudding of boots pounded along the gravel drive outside up to the door. The electric bell screamed, and the voice of a man shouted to his horse to stand still.

Even before the white-faced maid came into the room, John Trask knew that all this only signaled the opening of yet another Valley of Suffering for him.

Sanda hurried past the maid to the man in the hall and the lieutenant followed her.

"It's the major—a shooting-accident down by the lower plantation—Sir John's gun. The major sent for Miss Evesmoor," he said.

THEY waited for no more. Together, Geoffrey Trask's wife and his brother hurried out.

"The short cut, Sanda," said the lieutenant, and they passed quickly through the little gate and so into the old wood. High overhead, a little irresolute wind was wandering like an aimless sprite through the boughs, plucking yellow leaves and dropping them softly—they fell like dead or dying butterflies. Once Sanda cried out, shaking her hand.

"It was only a dead leaf falling, Sanda dear—the woods are full of them. There are no moths left now. Hold my arm, Sanda?"

They hurried on down the winding path that was barely distinguishable in the gloom.

"I know that there has been a terrible accident'" she cried. "A great tragedy!" She was distraught. "The night fell like a night of tragedy. This gray, gray October—Oh. but I could not endure it if Geoff goes before we reach him!"

"You will tire yourself too soon, Sanda—it is a long way to run across the park—and you have nothing to fear. I know, dear. I can see things." He was running by her side, whispering as he ran. "That is, things are being made plain to me. You will not lose Geoff to-night, my dear. I know!"

She glanced at him, twisting her head sideways, and she saw that, though his face was white, his eyes were bright.

"This is my twilight—this is the beginning of my night. It was for this that the commander of that American battle-ship was destined to give alms to the prisoners," he said strangely.

They came out into the park, deep gray with the coming of night. Back in the woods the hard unmusical note of a roosting pheasant startled from sleep rang like a stone rattled in a deep china vase, and Sanda started.

"I heard it. Sanda. It was only a bird startled in the night—only a pheasant."

"It was crying out—Perhaps Geoff shot it—wounded it to-day." She was lacerating herself in her anguish and terror, and he said no more.

The lights of the great house swung into view, and they climbed the long, gradual slope.

An old, pale, trembling man whose mouth quivered uncontrollably—the lieutenant hardly recognized his father at first—ran out from the lighted hall with outstretched hands, one to each of them.

"He was crying out for you both," he quavered. "Never a word for me. My gun it was—I don't know how—Never a word—"

Half blindly he brought them to the white, still form that had once been an ace. He was unconscious now, and the doctor's face was grave. The vicar was there—he had met the shooting party—but his coat was off and he was busy with dreadful white-and-red cloths. There were others—women of the house—but Violet had not yet returned from a visit.

The doctor spoke quietly to Sir John—-but his eyes were fixed on Sanda in a strange and appraising stare. From the low, incisive phrases there leaped with the clean, swift suddenness of a search-light a terrible demand—stark, inexorable, ruthless—conveyed to them without the waste of one syllable of speech, one second of time.

The look of the medical man was almost a challenge—and it was upon Sanda that he gazed.

"It is my right. I claim it, and I will yield it to no one. Why—I am his wife, you know!" Her voice rang with a note of triumph.

"And after a little while to be the mother of his son," said the doctor, a great compassion on his face. "It is quite impossible."

She cried out lowly, like a trapped thing fainting in pain, for it was true, and John Trask passed before her.

Over his shoulder Jack Trask saw the face of the vicar. His mouth was drooping like a man trying to smile so that he should not weep—even as he had looked when at the shrine.

But the lieutenant was thrilling with a new and singular joy. The doctor had said that there was no serious danger to him in the giving of blood, but for all that, as surely as he knew that Geoff needed that which ran in his veins, so he knew that this was to be the end of things for him. But now that brought him only a sharp and invigorating delight. Everything that he had really valued had been taken—not deliberately, not infamously, but in the natural process of rebuilding upon the dry bones of his memory.

His studio, his collection, Sanda—gone, all gone. But they did not matter now. An odd, twisted thought went weaving through his mind. How singular that one of two brothers should have all the ill fortune, if it was ill fortune at all, to give his life for his brother, and the other to have all the good fortune, for he knew clairvoyantly that this wound was the best thing that could have befallen Geoff. It would release him from the enchantment of Trecis and save him from the hopeless end of that liaison—it would bind him to Sanda forever.

For himself, it was good to give—to offer that which was acceptable. All the other things had been taken from him; but this, life itself, he gave—gave freely, generously, grateful to be able to give.

How much better than to die—to rot in that Turkish den of infamy and foulness and despair.

The doctor was ready for him, and a strange, wistful desire flickered in his mind as he turned. He leaned to the vicar, whispering that, if it were quite in order, he would like to feel that if anything happened his name might perhaps be permitted to remain on the shrine—if nobody raised any objection.

The vicar tried to say that it would not be necessary—could not speak—and nodded, smiling his pitiful drooping smile.

THERE is a little pilgrimage which the children of Geoffrey Trask and Sanda, his wife, will often make, and upon which their friends and little visitors, when they are for a space tired of their play, will accompany them. It will not take them far from the beautiful and exquisitely-kept little pavilion in the great park that is called "the studio"—only down the hill and through the village to the shrine, there to look upon and perhaps to wonder about that under whose name is still inscribed upon the roll:

THE END