"I mean that the thought which had come to him in his dugout, the thought which he had striven so hard against, was that he didn't really want to die. He was young, and his wife's death was beginning to lose its sting. He wanted to live; to see his son; and he posed because he thought it was disloyal to her memory. He posed even to himself. And it was only as he knelt over the man in the ditch that he realized it...." Ralton turned to the girl impulsively. "My dear," he cried, "he learned his lesson at a great price—the price of a man's life. There is no call for you to do that. But you're young, and life, and all that it means, is crying out to you. And you're posing. The sympathy of all those people at the hotel isn't real sympathy; and you know it isn't. They're posing, too. When things are really cutting one, when one's really up against it, one's just got to go away and hide. The crowd is no use then." He stood up and looked at her with a grave smile. "He won't think it disloyal, believe me. You see—he understands."
She watched the tall, straight figure striding away towards the green where his ball lay, and then for a long while she sat motionless staring out to sea. Once or twice she saw him in the distance, as he continued on his solitary round, until a sudden shiver of cold warned her that March at Portsdown was not the ideal month for sitting out-of-doors.
She rose, and started to walk towards the club-house. In her path lay the seventeenth green, and as she reached the pin she paused. Not a soul was in sight: save for the screaming gulls the girl was alone in the falling dusk.
"Jimmy," she said aloud, "it was here you holed that fifteen-yard putt. Do you remember, old man? It was behind that mound you kissed me for the first time. D'you remember, old man? I shan't forget—ever. But it's just a dream, Jimmy, a beautiful dream; and one mustn't pay too much attention to dreams, must one—not after they've gone? You won't think I'm a blighter, boy, will you? but it has lost its sting. You know what it was—at first. But now—oh! my dear—he's right, that stranger. I've been posing. And, Jimmy, I'm going to stop. You'll understand, lad ... and you'll be glad too, won't you—for my sake?"
She glanced from one well-remembered spot to another; then, deliberately, she looked up into the grey sky.
"Au revoir, old chap.... God bless you."
It all depended on a four-foot putt. If Ralton holed out, the match would be all square, and they would have to play the nineteenth. By faultless golf he had pulled his opponent down from dormy three at the sixteenth, and now at the last hole he was left with what seemed a certainty, judging by his form up to date. And, as so often happens with certainties, it failed to come off.
The ball lipped the hole—hesitated, and stopped a bare inch from the edge. For a moment Ralton looked at it, and then, with a grin, congratulated the victor and strode through the crowd around the green.
"Bad luck, sir—bad luck." Complete strangers condoled with him as he passed them, and Ralton smiled his thanks. The game had been a good one, which was all that mattered; and now that it was over, there was no reason why he shouldn't return at once to Portsdown-on-Sea. It was a nice place, he told himself—good golf—and...
"Well played, my friend—well played." He stopped abruptly, and stared at the speaker.