"Didn't I kill you?" he asked in a whisper.

"No," said Zaidos. There seemed to be nothing else to say.

"I tried to," said Velo.

"Don't talk!" said Zaidos. He didn't know what to say to the boy who had nearly taken his life in cold blood. It was murder. The slow deliberation of the thing chilled him. He had read of things like that; of innocent people who injured no one being killed in order that someone might unjustly enjoy something they possessed. He had been ready to stand by Velo and see that he was all right always. And Velo must have known it. No matter what he had said, Velo must have known that! Yet Velo had tried to kill him. He had seen the leveled revolver, and besides, Velo had just told him, as though he didn't in the least mind his knowing. As a matter of fact, Velo did care; but he was so near the shadowy borderland that lies between the living and the dead, that there was nothing left for him but the truth. And because of that, he continued, "I'm sorry, Zaidos."

But Zaidos would not reply.

"I'm sorry, Zaidos," Velo said again in his thick, queer whisper. "Will you forgive me?"

"No," said Zaidos suddenly. "No, I won't! What did I ever do to you that you should try to take my life? If I said I forgive you it would be a lie. Besides, you can't be sorry right off like that. As soon as you get well, you will try it again."

"Oh, I am sorry!" said Velo. "You must forgive me, Zaidos. I am too badly hurt to get well; you will not be troubled again. I know how I am wounded. So I am going to talk as much as I can. I wish you would take the papers. I stole them from you at the barracks. I got permission to go in while you were asleep. I thought you wouldn't be there, and I wanted to look for you and say that I couldn't find you, and so call the attention of the officers to your absence. The night your father died, you know. But you were there asleep, and I felt in your blouse, and found the packet. You had better get it out of my jacket now."

Zaidos unwillingly felt once more through the pocket. "It is empty," he said.

Velo thought a moment.

"I had it in my hand just now," he said. "Look on the ground."

The papers lay beside Velo's hand. Zaidos picked them up, and put them in his pocket.

"I have them," he said gruffly.

"I'm glad of that," said Velo. "Zaidos, I sold my soul for those papers. I have been a bad boy all my life, not because I had bad surroundings, not because I was neglected. Your father was as good to me as he could be. I just thought it was smart to be bad. I don't think I hated you because of all your money and your title as much as I did because I knew you were square. I knew it as soon as you came into your father's house that night. I could see it in your face, and hear it in your voice, and feel it in your hand-shake. I knew you would never stand for the sort of life I led, and I hated you for it, Zaidos. And so it went from bad to worse, until I shot at you. You must forgive me, Zaidos!"

"I can't," said Zaidos stubbornly. "What's the use of my saying I do, if I don't?"

"Oh, you must forgive me!" begged the dying boy. "I am so sorry, so sorry! You can't see anyone as sorry as I am and not forgive them. Please, Zaidos! I can't bear it unless you do!"

"No," said Zaidos again.

Velo did not speak. When you are asked to forgive a wrong, and you refuse, it turns the punishment on you. Velo was silent, but Zaidos commenced to suffer. He could feel himself growing hard and cruel. After all, Velo had not succeeded in injuring him much, and Velo himself was dying fast. He could see it. But something kept him silent. He could not say the words Velo had begged to hear, and he stared back while Velo looked at him with dumb and suffering eyes.

"Oh, forgive me!" begged Velo with a dry sob that racked him. "Zaidos, be as good as you can, but don't be hard! You can't tell what temptations people have. It is a terrible thing to be hard. Don't do it, Zaidos! There are so many hard people—hard teachers and hard fathers who don't know how fellows are tempted and how they suffer. I am dying, Zaidos, and I tell you don't be hard. Forgive me!"

"I do!" said Zaidos quite suddenly. "I do, Velo! I mean it!"

Everything changed. He felt a kindliness and affection for Velo.

"You will get well, Velo, and we'll hit it off like twins."

"It's too late," said Velo, smiling; "too late for anything except to be happy to think you have forgiven me. Besides, it is as well for me to go. I think I'm a bad sort, Zaidos. . . . But I'm—so—glad—you—will—forgive me—"

There was a long silence. Then Velo opened his eyes once more.

"I'm going," he whispered. "Take my hand—"

Zaidos did so, and for a long, long time did not stir. The hand in his grew limp, then very cold. Zaidos held it loyally but he kept his eyes shut tight, because he could not bear to look.

The Red Cross orderlies did not find Zaidos until after dark. He was very cold, or else very hot, he did not know which, but tried to tell them all about it, and only succeeded in mumbling very fast before he dropped off into unconsciousness. He could not say farewell to Velo, lying there under the stars with a noble company about him. He was silent enough himself until he reached the big field hospital in the rear. He did not know Nurse Helen when she bent over him, but he commenced to talk in a low tone, and he kept on, as though he would never stop.

He told her all about everything, including a green dragon that sat on his leg, and felt heavy. He told her school jokes, and about the girl who came to the hop and about several million other things. Fever raged in him and his voice went down and down until it was as thin as a field mouse's squeak. Nurse Helen grew to look at him gravely and rather sadly and she spent no time at all with Tony Hazelden, who was almost well enough to get married. At least he could sit up an hour every day. But at last one day there came a change. Zaidos gave a sigh, and stopped talking and went to sleep.

The next time he opened his eyes, he looked straight into Nurse Helen's great, lovely, dark pools of silence and content. He looked at her a long time; then without speaking, he went to sleep again. The next time he woke up, he managed to whisper, "Got a lot to tell you!"

"Let it wait," she whispered back. "Don't talk at all. You will get well much sooner."

She was right, and he did, making great jumps toward recovery when he once got started. The time came when she let him talk and Zaidos told her all about everything. He even told her how hard he had been and how long it had taken him to forgive Velo.

So the days went on smoothly. Zaidos did not know how many; but one morning there awoke in him a great longing for his adopted land. And that happened to be the very morning when he heard something that might have made him very unhappy, but did not.

The doctor came along.

"What are you going to do with yourself when we discharge you, young man?" he demanded.

"I suppose I'll have to go back on the field," Zaidos replied.

"Don't you want to?" asked the doctor.

"I can't really say I do," said Zaidos regretfully. "You see I've never had the chance to fight. I was lame when they put me at the Hospital Corps work. At least my broken leg was tender. Now it's shot up, and I won't be good for anything else but Red Cross jobs."

"I may as well tell you," said the doctor. "You will always be a little lame, Zaidos. Not much, understand, but enough to bar you from any work here. I'm sorry, son. We did our best, but that shin bone didn't heal right. You have been given your 'honorable discharge.'"

For a little Zaidos was silent. No more running; no more jumping. It was a little hard, but he thought of the wounds of others, and was ashamed.

"Will I have to walk with a cane, doctor!" he asked.

"Oh, no," said the doctor. "Your limp will scarcely be noticeable."

"Then I guess I'll get on my job," said Zaidos, unconsciously quoting the boys at school.

"What's that?" asked the doctor.

"Why," said Zaidos, "I planned to go back to New York after all this was over, and study medicine."

"Couldn't do a better thing," said the doctor heartily. "That's the best thing you could possibly do. Nurse Helen has told me something about you, and I will say that I think you have planned wisely and well. If you had ties of family in this part of the world, it might be a different matter. No one has any right to carve out his destiny without some reference to the people nearest him. 'Honor thy father and thy mother' holds good to-day as well as it did when the old patriarchs walked the earth. And I'm not sure it isn't needed now more than it was then, when the scheme of life was simpler. Only now we usually have a few sisters and brothers, and perhaps an unmarried aunt or two to consider. But you are all alone, are you not?"

"Yes," said Zaidos. "I couldn't be more alone without being gone myself. I have lots of friends in school and I know a fellow in England; and so it's not so bad."

"No," said the doctor. "I should call it very good. And you have already found out, Zaidos, that sometimes blood relations fail a man.

"I think I will write out a discharge for you, and as soon as you can move you had better get away, and move toward the first seaport where you can get an American ship. I will pull all the wires I can. You had a pretty bad fever, my boy. You need a change, and you need it soon. I'll see what I can do. In the meantime, lie still and get your strength together. Things are frightfully crowded, but a lot of supplies and more nurses have been promised. Has Nurse Helen told you any news?"

"No," said Zaidos, "not a thing. About the hospital, do you mean, doctor?"

"Not exactly," said the doctor, smiling. "Just some little plans of her own."

"I'll bet Tony Hazelden is in them!" said Zaidos.

The doctor chuckled. "Well, these girls! You never can tell," he said. "She will tell you herself, I've no doubt."

He got up and straightened his bent back. "This sort of thing is hard on an old man," he said. "It is just two weeks since I have been to bed."

"Well, this one feels good to me," said Zaidos. "I was so surprised when I woke up and found something smooth and clean under me. I don't see how the nurses manage to keep things so neat."

"You would not wonder if you could see what they do," said the doctor solemnly. "I tell you every woman who goes into the field deserves a place in the Legion of Honor. She deserves a crown, and a big pension. She's an angel. You want to honor all women, all kinds, all your life, my boy, for the sake of these nurses. Some day, perhaps, I will come over to your America, if you would like to see an old derelict, and we will talk and talk, and I will tell you some stories."

He touched Zaidos' bandaged head gently, nodded farewell and walked on down the line of cots. Zaidos continued to sleep and eat. His blood was so clean that his wounds healed almost at once. Helen came to his bedside one day with a queer little smile on her face.

"Do you remember, John, what I said when you brought Tony to me? I told you that just as soon as he was able to hold my hand, I meant to marry him."

"Did you do it?" asked Zaidos.

"Not yet," said Helen.

"Goodness!" said Zaidos. "I didn't think Tony was as sick as all that! I would have to be a good deal worse than he looks to be so sick I couldn't hold your hand!"

"Silly!" said Helen, blushing. "If you will attend with the gravity the occasion requires, I will explain things to you. Perhaps Tony has been able to hold my hand a little; but he was not strong enough to hold it very hard. Now, however, he is growing better fast. On the other hand, the doctors say I am worn out. I don't think so myself. I think they are making it up, the dears, so I can honorably go home with Tony. But be that as it may, I am going home. We are going to be married a week from tomorrow, John, dear, and then in a few days I will begin to move my dear Tony by slow stages homeward. And I want you to come with us."

"Me on a honeymoon trip? Well, I think not!" Zaidos exploded. "Nay, nay, pretty lady, you won't get me to chaperone you!"

"Now, John!" cried Helen. "Oh, I could shake you! What will I do crossing Europe with a sick man on a cot, unless someone comes to help me? I didn't think you were so ungallant!"

Zaidos stared at her. "That's another way to look at it," he said. "Of course I will go with you, and glad enough to do it. I never thought of that, Helen. Of course you could not go alone! Why can't I get up and go talk things over with Tony? You can't yell that sort of conversation the whole length of a ward."

"You are to be allowed to get up tomorrow," said Helen, "and, oh, John, please get well fast, because really I don't see how we can go without you. No one else can be spared, and I want to go home. I want to see my father and mother. Just think of it, I will have to be married all alone. Not one of my own people to give me away, and kiss me, and say, 'God bless you.' I suppose I am an ungrateful girl. I ought to be thinking only that I have Tony, and how happy I am; but you know after all, John, a girl's wedding day is a wonderful time. It is all so different to what we had planned. At home, we would have had the service in our own dear church, trimmed by all the little girls in the parish. And everyone would be there. The church would not hold them; the churchyard would be full of beaming faces, everybody bobbing and curtsying and wishing us good luck. And if I felt that I must shed a few happy tears, my mother's shoulder would be near."

"Do you have to cry?" asked Zaidos.

"Why, I don't suppose one has to," said Helen musingly, "but generally you do."

"That's awful," said Zaidos dismally, and then repeated, "Awful! However, I don't know the first thing about girls, and of course you do. If you must cry on somebody, why, you must; and you can use me, if you like."



CHAPTER XII

GREATER THINGS

A week flew past. In the convalescent ward there was the greatest amount of suppressed excitement. All the soldiers loved Helen, and they showered her with queer, pathetic little gifts, always the best of their poor store of belongings. Tony was not to leave his cot. He would have to be moved across Europe on a stretcher, but he lay beaming at the men who called good wishes to him in half a dozen languages.

The wedding morning dawned clear and beautiful. Every soldier who could hobble was out early gathering flowers and boughs with which they trimmed the ward. Helen, who was a hundred yards away, in the nurses' tent, knew nothing of all this. An hour before she was to come to meet Tony, the old doctor, bearing a large package, stood before the tent.

"My dear," he said awkwardly when Helen appeared, "I—er—wanted to do something for you, and it gave me a good deal of happiness to pretend that you were my own daughter, if you don't object. I happen to have a sister in Paris, and I telegraphed her a week ago. I think I have heard you say you were size thirty-six. Well, my dear, this package has just come. She sent it in care of a reserve of nurses. You see—ha—hum—the men will be so pleased. Now you put it on if it is fit for you, and wear it, with the love of a grateful old man." He turned and abruptly walked away as Helen untied the box, but he could not so escape from those swift feet. There was a cry as the girl peered beneath the papers, and then a swift rush toward him. So it happened that it was not Zaidos' reluctant and unaccustomed shoulder on which the happy tears were shed, and it was not to Tony that Helen's last tender girl-kisses were given.

And when the time came for the simple, sad little ceremony in the hospital ward, it was not a dark clad nurse who walked between the cots on the doctor's arm, but such a vision of loveliness that the men gasped and Tony turned so pale that the aid beside him reached for the spirits of ammonia. For the doctor's present was a wedding dress, just as satiny and lacy and long as any bride in Mayfair could have worn.

The veil covered her lovely face, and through it her dark eyes lingered tenderly on the eager white faces that lined her path. And last they rested on Tony. Zaidos caught the look, and it made him feel that he would do most anything to have anyone look at him like that. It was a look that a fellow could never bear unless he had lived a clean and honest life. Zaidos, seeing this wonderful look that was meant for Tony alone, glanced quickly away and somehow it was he, down in his innermost heart, who longed for a shoulder to cry on!

In a few short minutes the little ceremony was over, and a musical genius played the wedding march on a mouth-organ so you'd know it anywhere. He followed that with God Save the King, and Tipperary, while Helen, looking more like an angel every minute, walked slowly down the aisle, shaking hands with the men. She came at last to one whose arms were both gone. Without a moment's hesitation she stooped and pressed a kiss on the upturned brow. Another moment with a last smile and wave of her hand, she was gone, leaving the men with their beautiful memory.

Zaidos asked the doctor, who was openly wiping his eyes, to speak with him a moment outside.

"You know my cousin is out there," he said, with a wave of the arm at the field where great trenches made a resting place for hundreds of unknown men. "I've been trying to think of something to do for him, something to remember him by. I couldn't think of anything. First I thought of a monument; and then I thought of tablets in the church at Saloniki. Then it just happened to come to me, that why not do something for our field hospital here. When I get to England I will arrange to have the money sent you. Do you approve of that?"

"Of course I do, my boy," said the doctor heartily. "Of course I approve! Any help would be most gratefully accepted. You know how short we are for everything. Send anything you feel like affording. Any little sum you happen to want to give."

"I was wondering about five hundred dollars a month, while the war lasts," said Zaidos musingly. "Would that make much difference?"

"Five—five hundred American dollars?" screamed the doctor. "A hundred pounds? You don't mean that, do you? Why, hum—haw—can you afford it?"

"Oh, yes," said Zaidos simply. "I suppose I can afford almost anything I want. I had a long talk with my father the night he died, so I happen to know just what my income is. And I don't spend much. There isn't anything to spend it for. Of course, when I go back to school, I mean to put up a new gymnasium. The one we have is a freak; but that won't break me, either."

"A hundred pounds!" said the doctor. Delightful visions of endless rolls of bandages, antiseptics, medicines, nurses, litters, shelter tents, beds, and food appeared before the doctor's delighted eyes. "A hundred pounds!" he repeated. "Zaidos, Zaidos, you will erect a monument to your cousin finer—" he choked, then turned, and with an arm over Zaidos' shoulder continued: "Well, Zaidos, it is hard for an Englishman, and an old Englishman at that, to express what he feels; but, my boy, I am as proud of you as though you were my own son! Proud of you, Zaidos! You are perfectly sure you mean it?"

"Of course," said Zaidos, laughing. "I think the thing to do is to put money in a bank and fix it so you yourself can draw it, as needed, at the rate of five hundred a month. I'll be busy in school catching up so I won't be able to see to it."

"Wonderful! Wonderful!" said the doctor. "I think I will go see the General, Zaidos. I have got to tell someone. I can never keep all this to myself."

He went hurrying off and Zaidos watched him. Once he bumped into a tree and twice an orderly called him. He made no reply. He was thinking with whirling brain of the lives he would be able to save.

Then he reached the General's tent, and burst in unceremoniously. They had been classmates at college.

"Dick," cried the doctor, "Dick, the most amazing thing has happened!" and with a rush of words he poured out the fine news.

"Well, bless me, bless me!" cried the General, shoving back from the table where a map of Europe was spread. "Now, Henry, I know just how well pleased you are. Why, what wonderful things you can do with all that money! But are you sure the lad will do as he says?"

"You ought to know that lad, Dick!" exploded the doctor. "He's the finest boy! He's just what you would have wanted your boy to be like, if you had loved some girl, and had married her, and had had a baby, and it had grown up. He won't disappoint me, rest assured of that!"

And Zaidos didn't.

When, after a long, slow and anxious journey, Helen and Tony and Zaidos finally reached London, Zaidos left the young married pair in the charge of a full battalion of relatives that had advanced in close formation as their train drew into the station, and proceeded at once to the office of a lawyer who was none other than Tony's cousin Jack. It took only a couple of days to fix the thing all up for the doctor; indeed, it was so tied up with red tape and all that, that Zaidos was not sure anyone would ever get the money.

Jack was more than nice to Zaidos, and insisted on taking him to his own quarters, where he rested quietly for several days. The journey had been harder than Zaidos had realized. His leg ached, and it was slow work getting around on crutches. As soon as Jack could get away, he suggested that they should go down to Hazelden, and see for themselves if Tony was improving as much as the family claimed.

They went on the train, for Jack had given up his motor car as his donation to the war fund. In the station, as Zaidos was hobbling painfully along, a husky youth in uniform bumped into him, and nearly knocked him over. He apologized.

"All right, Nick, all right!" said Zaidos joyously.

The husky youth stared, then gave a very un-English whoop, and made a bear rush at Zaidos. When he had finished patting him on the back and stuttering all sorts of inquiries, he managed to make a few questions clear. Where was he going? What for? Who was he going to stay with? When was he coming back? If it wasn't rotten, rotten luck that he was just off for Paris on government business!

When Zaidos could get a word in edgewise, he broke it to Nickell-Wheelerson that he was going away from England, back to America—and to that end his passage was already secured on a vessel leaving in a week's time. He was going down to visit some people named Hazelden.

"My second cousins, by Jove!" averred Nick, delighted. "A week? Well, if I can smooth things over between the Allies and Germany, in less than that time, I'll come down and ask them to put me up for a day." He patted Zaidos again. "It certainly seems good to see you, old chap! Here's my train, so I must go. Don't forget me, and I'll get down before you leave, if I can."

He dashed for the door the porter held open for him, and with a last wave of the hand was carried out of sight. When Jack returned, Zaidos told him about the encounter, and Jack laughed.

"Of course he's a cousin," he said. "One of the nicest fellows I know. Didn't know you knew him. Odd about its being such a little world and all that, don't you think?" He laughed. "Once I met a chap in India way up in the mountains. I was running around a bit, and he was tracking down a lost tribe or something of the sort. A while after that I walked into dad's billiard room at home, and there was the Johnny playing billiards with himself, cool as you please! He stopped, and said, 'Hullo, didn't know you knew I this family!'

"I said, 'Didn't know you knew them, either.'

"'Relations, perhaps?' he asked.

"'Yes, parents,' I told him, and then we had a jolly gas."

Jack waited on Zaidos with such care all the way down from London that the boy said he would be entirely spoiled. A big, roomy car met them at the station and carried them smoothly over miles of perfect road through the vast park of the Hazelden's where pheasants by the dozen flew across their path, bright-eyed deer dashed into hiding, and hundreds of wonderful Persian sheep grazed on the lawns that had been lawns for generations.

It seemed strange to see Helen in filmy summer dress instead of the severe uniform of a nurse, and Zaidos missed the white cap on her beautiful hair, but he decided finally that she was even prettier without it. Zaidos could not keep from watching her every move. She ordered Tony about with a pretty air of sternness, but with such a look of loving devotion that it was easy to see the reason for the young man's look of contentment.

The days flew past as though on wings. Helen's younger sister proved to be a second edition of Helen, even prettier if possible, and Zaidos found himself wondering how he could ever have given a thought to the blonde damsel whom he had met at the hop so long ago. Before it came time to go, Zaidos caught himself regarding Helen in a new light. He found himself thinking that she would be a very pleasant person to have in the family! And that was going a long, long way for Zaidos!

He had news for Helen. A letter from the old doctor, with pages of thanks and plans for the use of the money. Of course Helen had to hear it all, and afternoons they would all sit on the terrace together, and talk of the future and make pleasant plans.

Of the past, of the dreadful days on the stained battlefields of the Dardanelles, they spoke little. Some day perhaps when time had mellowed the colors, then this group of young people could talk it over. Just now the price they had paid for their experiences seemed too great. It was all too near. They tried to put it behind them, as all the world will have to do when at last this war is over, when the last gun calls its death challenge, when all the submarines rise to the surface of the outraged sea, and the last war Zeppelin settles to earth. On that day, a curtain must fall over this terrible middle-act in modern history, to rise again on new and nobler things.

The group on the terrace, enjoying the warm afternoon sun, often kept the mournful silence of those who have known all war's horrors, yet they were filled with deepest thankfulness that they were spared to each other.

The old Earl followed Tony in his invalid chair with adoring eyes. Every day, a dozen women, ladies of high degree, assembled and sewed or knit for the soldiers. The great county houses on either side were given over as convalescent homes. Fairs, bazaars, teas, meetings filled the days. England gave all her time and strength for the soldiers.

When Zaidos found a chance to read the doctor's letter to Helen she was so pleased with it that she insisted on taking it and reading it to a number of the committees that seemed to be meeting from morning until night. The letter gave a clear view of the needs of the Red Cross, and told so well of the good it was doing. And to his horror, Zaidos was invited to address three separate organizations. Helen refused for him after he had threatened to run away by night and walk to London.

Nick evidently had trouble with the Allies or the Germans, because he did not come down, and sent no word.

It came time for Zaidos to leave. The last night he was there he wrote a bunch of letters. The first was addressed to school, and commenced:

Fellows:

Well, after all, I'm coming back. Such a lot of things have happened that there is no use writing about them at all. I'll tell you all that it's good for you to hear when I see you. Only there's no reason for me to stay here now as there is now no one in this country belonging to me. My only relative, a cousin about my age, was shot and killed. And I got nipped a little. So they don't want me any more, and I'm coming back on the next steamer. If you can get it, I want my old room.

I'm visiting some fine people here in the country. Met 'em on the battlefield. At least I met two of them there. I saw Nick in London, but he's in France now. You know he's an Earl; but it doesn't seem to worry him. He stepped all over me just the same as ever, and was just as sorry. He wears a uniform, of course, so I don't know if his neckties are as bad as ever they used to be.

It's going to be good to see you. I guess after all I have told you all the news. Nothing much has happened, as you see.

There's a girl here; you never saw anything like her. Say, she makes me feel sorry for you way off there!

Well, so long, boys! I'll see you soon, if we don't get torpedoed. They don't make many plans over here. They say, "Do come and see me to-morrow if you don't get Zeppelined." So long!

ZAIDOS.

Zaidos folded this letter with the pleased consciousness that he had written a lot of news.

The next was for the doctor.

"Dear Doctor," he wrote, "I'm at the Hazeldens; and they are about the nicest people in the world. Among other members of the family, Mrs. Hazelden, who was Miss Helen, has a sister who seems a pleasant young lady. I will soon leave for America; and except for leaving the Hazeldens, as well as Helen's sister, who seems real pleasant, I shall be glad to go. I do hate to hang around and do nothing. A million people come here every day and work for the soldiers. I think the men would appreciate it if they could know the amount of tea it takes to keep them going here while they sew.

The money is all fixed up. I do hope you will enjoy spending it. Let me hear from you some day, doctor. Perhaps that is asking a good deal, but it would be fine if you could spare time.

I often think of Velo. Somehow he seems different to me now. There were a lot of things about Velo that used to make me mad, but which now I do not seem to remember. It is a great pity that he died. Perhaps if he had lived, and I had taken him back to school with me, he would have had a different life. I don't know. Anyway, somehow I think of him a good deal, and I'm glad I do, because it must be awful to have no one at all to think of you after you are dead.

I will write again when I get back to America, doctor. Don't forget me and don't forget that I am going to try to be as great a surgeon as you are.

Your friend, ZAIDOS."

The third letter was written in modern Greek, using the familiar "thee" and "thou" of intimate speech.

My old Nurse Maratha:

The war kept me from thee, when at last I could get away. I would have come to Saloniki if I could but I had an errand that took me straight to England.

Velo is dead, Maratha. He was shot in the big battle. You must have been praying when he died, if I know thee still. And I was shot, too, a little, and must ever walk lame. I tell thee this so no one else may tell thee first. I am only a little lame, though. In a day or two I take ship for America and so back to school, as thou heardst His Highness, my father, plan that last night. Close the house, and go thou to the lodge. Keep all the servants who have served my father for more than ten years and pay them from the money I shall send thee each month. And be very good to Maratha, for I shall come back some day, and she must not be too old or too lame to take care of me.

Good-bye, Maratha. I am always Thy boy, ZAIDOS.

Zaidos sealed the letters and sent them off with a sigh of relief. He had now but one cause of worry. He had promised to write to Helen's sister, and he didn't know what to say! He forgot the fact that he would not have to write the letter until he reached America. But at last he forgot even that when the parting came.

Helen tore herself away from Tony and went down to London to see him off; and Jack went rushing around making all sorts of work for himself. They were early at the pier, and, after Zaidos' baggage was settled in his stateroom, the three people sauntered back to the dock for the half hour that remained before the first warning call. Three familiar figures came down, looking here and there. Helen saw them and exclaimed, "Why, there's father, and mother, and Alice!"

And sure as fate it was! The rector had had to take the next train for London most unexpectedly, and so thought he would bring his wife and daughter to join in the leave-takings.

So Zaidos had quite a little group of people waving him good-bye as the ship went slowly out into the west. But the gaze that held him longest and the face he saw the last was not Helen's!

THE END