Captain Desmond, V.C.

E-text prepared by Stephen Hope, Jen Haines, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
Transcribers note:
All inconsistent, unusual and unorthodox spelling has been left as it was in the original book.
One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break; Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph; Held, we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep—to wake. —Robert Browning.
REVISED EDITION, IN LARGE PART REWRITTEN
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MCMXVII
All Rights reserved
M. D.
In revising and partially rewriting my novel, 'Captain Desmond, V.C.,' I have been glad to make good the opportunity afforded me of bringing the Aftermath nearer to my original conception than it was in its first form. The three short chapters now substituted for the one final scene are therefore, in essence, no innovation. They represent more or less what I conceived at the time, but suppressed through fear of making my book too long; and thereby risked upsetting the balance of sympathy, which I hope the fresh chapters may tend to restore.
M. D.

If we impinge, never so lightly, on the life of a fellow-mortal, the touch of our personality, like the ripple of a stone cast into a pond, widens and widens, in unending circles, through the æons, till the far-off gods themselves cannot tell where action ceases. —Kipling.