War time story told in the first person by Major Meredyth, crippled in the Boer War and now acting as a sort of father confessor to other characters. Leonard Boyce, about whom there is an ugly story of his past record in the Boer War, is the real hero. Mystery centers about this incident and its effects upon his after life and his relations to Betty Fairfax to whom he was once engaged.(Third best selling novel of 1917.)