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104 since I've come home from France—unaccommodating, disagreeable. It's true, too—all she says—and more. I want to talk to you about it—explain it, if I can."

"Oh, don't," she interrupted. "Don't bother."

"You see," Vincent went on, "I had an idea if I could once get home, back among normal human-beings again, back into old habits, old ruts, old clothes, I could forget about things over there. The doctors thought I might too. Fools!" he shrugged. "There are no old habits, old ruts left! There are no sane and normal people—not here! I discovered by the third day I was at home there was no such thing as escape. I'm thin-skinned, I suppose, super-sensitive. Some fellows don't mind talking about the thing—making entertaining stories out of its details. But I can't! To me the whole affair is horrible—horrible." He shuddered. "I got to hate it. It got to be hell to me," he confided in a low voice to Elizabeth Oliver.

In answer she tossed a pine cone at a distant target. "See if you can hit that big gray stone beyond that tree," she said lightly.

Instead of taking the cone which Elizabeth offered him, Vincent took her hand.

"You've been the only one who has understood," he said. "You've been the only one who