"I guess you were about right about my quitting the Service. I wasn't fit.
"After all, if I hadn't turned coward and lost my grip on myself, you'd have been with the Highlanders at the Dargai Hill, and Cary—
"Well, that don't excuse me. I don't mean it as an excuse. I've never been worth a shilling or made anything of my life, but I've thought a lot of you—always.
"Good-bye,
"ROB."
And then Trevelyan drew forth a clean sheet of paper and stared hard at it. What was there to say to Cary!
He dipped his pen in the ink.
"My Love," he wrote, and then stopped short, and stared at the words. Then he crumpled the sheet fiercely in his fingers and flung it into the fire.
"My dear Cary," he wrote, trying again, and then he laid down his pen and laughed harshly. The black letters stared back at him like small demons, grinning derisively.
The third time he started without a heading.