Clung to the support of Desmond's presence with the tenacity of an exhausted body and a fevered brain;--a tenacity which could not fail to touch the older man's heart, and which had made it difficult for others to take their due share in the nursing. Thus the slow weeks of dependence on one side, and unwearied service on the other, together with the underlying bond between them, had wrought a closeness of friendship to which the Boy had long aspired; and which promised to add depth and stability to the warmth and uprightness of heart that were already his. Harry Denvil's present need was for a tacit wiping out of the past, an unquestioning trust in regard to the future; and his Captain, after the wordless manner of men, gave him full assurance of both. It is just this power to draw out the best and strongest by the simple habit of taking it for granted that marks the true leader; the man who compels because he never insists; whose influence is less a force than a subtle radiation. And now, as Theo Desmond sat alone fronting a world compact of mist and fire, and the fragrance of moist earth, his mind was mainly concerned with the Boy's future, and with certain retrenchments of his own expenditure, whereby alone he could hope to cancel the debts that remained after the disposal of Roland. His sole trouble in respect of these retrenchments lay in the fact that they must, to some extent, affect his wife. If only she could be persuaded to see the necessity as clear
