"Ah-h-h! Another queer notion is this: the best seem to go first, Fancy; some of the young officers. Why? I figure it out that death is a big prize to such. It does explain things a bit, don't it? They get their reward—-quick! And then I set to figuring who is best. God Almighty knows. One feller in my platoon, before I got my stripes, was a right-down scallywag, a gaol-bird."
"My!"
"'Twas his notion about death being a prize for the lucky ones. And he told me that he loved to think how bad he'd been, because he reckoned himself safe, sure to be one of the last to be called. Next week, he was blown to a pulp, except his face, and on that was the queerest smile I ever saw. I helped to carry in what was left."
She clung closer to him. He said in his ordinary genial tones:
"I feel myself again in Blighty, dear. But I want no unpleasantness with William Saint or any one else. I think, night and day, of you, soon to be my dear wife."
Love-making rolled on smoothly, as before the war.
But what Alfred had said remained in Fancy's mind. It explained much that had puzzled her ever since she was able to think: her father's ill-health and ill-fortune, her mother's premature death, and the big casualty-lists. If life was a dream—! If reality lay beyond—! Then all the mysteries, the inequalities, the apparent injustices, could be explained. Such an explanation is old as human thought. It can be found in the Vedas, in the Bible, in the writings of the Gnostics, in some of the pagan and modern philosophies. Fancy, however, was neither concerned nor interested in speculations veiled in words she could not understand. Alfred's queer notions were his and hers, rushlights shining in the darkness. But terror touched her heart, when she applied the obvious conclusion to herself. If the best were taken, why then Alfred would be numbered amongst them.
As her wedding-day approached, this apprehension grew fainter and then disappeared for a time. She resolved to live in the present, not in the shadows of past or future. Such resolution has been a fairy godmother's gift to young women in Fancy's class of life. They turn their eyes gratefully to the sun whenever it shines upon them.
She had never been so happy before.
It was arranged that part of the honeymoon should be spent in London. After three days' sight-seeing, the pair would return to Mrs. Yellam's cottage. Alfred bestowed upon Fancy a black fur stole and muff, a wrist-watch, and a pair of silver-backed hair-brushes.