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The doctor complied, his hand on the wounded man’s wrist.

“That’s better,” Ford said. “Keep it there. And stop me if I rave. It’s a queer little world, isn’t it? I remember you well, but you wouldn’t know me. You were one of the highfliers, and I was always more or less of an earthworm. But you’ll remember Rotherby, the captain of the first eleven? A fine chap–that. He’s dead now, eh?”

“Yes,” the doctor said, “Rotherby’s dead.”

He was looking with an intent scrutiny at the scarred and bandaged face on the pillow. He had felt from the first that this man was no ordinary ranker. Yet till that moment it had never occurred to him that they might have met before.

“I always liked Rotherby,” the husky voice went on. “He was a big swell, and he didn’t think much of small fry. But you–you and he were friends, weren’t you?”

“For a time,” the doctor said. “It didn’t last.”

There was regret in his voice–the keen regret of a man who has lost a thing he valued.

“No; it didn’t last,” Ford agreed. “I remember when you chucked him. Or was it the other way round? I saw a good deal of him in those days. I thought him a jolly good fellow, till I found out what a scoundrel he was. And I had a soft feeling for him even then. You knew he was a scoundrel, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I knew.”

The doctor spoke reluctantly. The hospital tent, the silent row of wounded men, the stifling atmosphere, the flies, all were gone from his inner vision. He was looking with grave, compassionate eyes at the picture that absorbed the man at his side.

“He was good company, eh?” the restless voice went on. “But he had his black moments. I didn’t know him so well in the days when you and he were friends.”

“Nor I,” the doctor said. “But–why do you want to talk of him?”

Again he was searching the face at his side with grave intensity. It did not seem to him that this man could ever have been of the sort that his friend Rotherby would have cared to admit to terms of intimacy. Rotherby–notwithstanding his sins–had been fastidious in many ways.

The answer seemed to make the matter more comprehensible.

“I was with him when he died,” the man said. “It was in just such an inferno as this. We were alone together, looking for gold in the Australian desert. We didn’t find it, though it was there, mountains of it. The water gave out. We tossed for the last drain–and I won. That was how Rotherby came to die. He hadn’t much to live for, and he was going to die, anyhow. A queer chap, he was. He and his wife never lived together after the smash came, and he had to leave the country. Perhaps you knew?”

“Yes,” the doctor said again, “I knew.”

Ford moved his head restlessly.

“The thought of her used to worry him in the night,” he said. “I’ve known him lie for hours not sleeping, just staring up at the stars, and thinking, thinking. I’ve sometimes thought that the worst torture on earth can’t equal that. You know, after he was dead, they found her miniature on him–a thing in a gold case, with their names engraved inside. He used to wear it round his neck like a charm. It was by that they identified him–that and his signet-ring, and one or two letters. Scamp though I was, I had the grace not to rob the dead. They sent the things to his wife. I’ve often wondered what she did with them.”

“I can tell you that,” said the doctor quietly. “She keeps them among her greatest treasures.”

Ford turned sharply on his pillows, and stifled an exclamation of pain.

“You know her still, then?” he said.

“She is my wife,” the doctor answered.

A long silence followed his words. The wounded soldier lay with closed eyes and drawn brows. He seemed to be unconscious of everything save physical pain.