The Man from the Front

Gruelich did not answer. But the next moment they saw him cover his face with his hands and then draw them slowly downward, with a scarcely perceptible quivering movement of the body. His face, when it emerged from that glacial massage, reminded Mylott of snow on a convent roof, as he later confessed to Crotty.

"I--I can't talk about it!" he said in a sort of awed whisper, as he sat staring into the flames raptly, dumbly, as unconscious of the circle about him as if he were alone on the Sahara.

And. as he stared vacantly and inanely into that fire, tears could be seen dropping slowly from his pale and watery eyes.

He made no effort to hide them, for he was as unconscious of them as he was of the watchers about him.

He did not appear to be actually weeping. He seemed possessed of nothing so active and positive as pain. He merely appeared to be tired, tired to the extent of an ultimate indifferency which left him oblivious of his attitude and his environment. His