durance. I thought I could safely make the bargain and found out just a fortnight ago that I couldn't. Since then I have been between two stools; telling you and possibly losing you, or going on and torturing myself. I stood the latter a fortnight but now -- " and his head drooped wearily -- "it is too much".

There was a moment's silence, and the girl laughed with just the faintest trace of nervousness in her tone. Then she said:

"I do believe you are trying to flirt with me, and I will say this, you have adopted a rather novel method, but --"

"I am not flirting with you," he interrupted. "Why do you always rake up the past? And you know practically nothing of it -- only distorted gossip! Why don't you judge for yourself? You've seen a lot of me during the last two months and know something of my work and general life. Do you think it's all insincere?"

"Please don't got excited and shout," was her cool remark.

Alllison recovered himself immediately.

"Sorry," he said quietly. "You are quite right. Besides I had not intended to plead my case. You can perhaps guess why. But I thought it better to tell you the truth so that you would not think all kinds of things if I suddenly ceased to see you. I merely intended to tell you that, as matters stood, I could not see you any more."

Agnes Heatherley was looking at him attentively and seriously. Her voice had a new note in it as she asked, as if jocularly:

"Do you mean that we shall have no more nice excursions together? And I thought everything was going on so well."

"I'm awfully sorry, but I should break the agreement we made . . . And it won't do any good -- so I shall stay away. You'll soon get other friends with whom there need be no agreement. [?blank space] No, I did not quite mean that . . . But you understand, and if you want me, and -- sink the agreement -- just drop me a note."

She was still watching him coolly and critically.

"You're really rather absurd, but I shall remember."

A silence fell over them, and again, both became aware of the calm beauty of the scene. Then Allison said, glancing at the sun --:

"I'm afraid we'll have to turn if we are to be back before dark."

With deft strokes he turned the skiff, the steering ropes lying loose and unheeded in her hands, and in almost unbroken silence he rowed her swiftly home.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

BC Archives, MS-2570 Box 1 File 6 / MIST, Henry Masterman, Ruhleben magazine, Prisoners' Pie, 1916