He did not
return. Special correspondents were not so carefully shepherded in
that war as they have since been. They were more at liberty to take
risks, on behalf of the journals to which they were accredited.
William was killed a few weeks after he had landed at Cape Town.
And there came, as I have said, a time when I did not think of William
and Mary often; and then a time when I did more often think of them.
And especially much did my mind hark back to them in the late autumn
of last year; for on the way to the place I was staying at I had
passed the little railway station whose name had always linked itself
for me with the names of those two friends. There were but four
intervening stations. It was not a difficult pilgrimage that I made
some days later--back towards the past, for that past's sake and
honour. I had thought I should not remember the way, the three miles
of way, from the station to the cottage; but I found myself
remembering it perfectly, without a glance at the finger-posts. Rain
had been falling heavily, driving the late leaves off the trees; and
everything looked rather sodden and misty, though the sun was now
shining. I had known this landscape only in spring, summer, early
autumn. Mary had held to a theory that at other seasons I could not be
acclimatised.
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