Missing

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

CHAPTER XV

The studio was empty. A wood fire burnt on the wide hearth, making a pleasant glow in the wintry twilight. Cicely seated herself on the end of a sofa, crossed her feet, and took out a cigarette. But to Marsworth's intense relief she had taken off the helmet-like erection she called a hat, and her black curly hair strayed as it pleased about her brow and eyes.

'Well?' she said, at last, looking at him coolly. Marsworth could not help laughing. He brought a chair, and placed it where he could see her from below, as he lay back in it, his hands behind his head.

'Of course, you don't want to look at the portfolio,' she resumed, 'that was your excuse. You want to tell me of your engagement to Miss Stewart.'

Marsworth laughed again. Her ear caught what seemed to be a note of triumph.

'Make haste, please!' she said, breathing quickly. 'There isn't very much time.'

His face changed. He sat up, and held out his hand to her.

'Dear Cicely, I want you to do something for me.'

But she put her own behind her back.

'Have you been quarrelling already? Because if you want me to make it up, that really isn't my vocation.'

He was silent a moment surveying her. Then he said quietly—'I want you to help me. I want you to be kind to that little girl.'

'Daisy Stewart? Thank you. But I've no gift at all for mothering babes! Besides—she'll now have all the advice, and all the kindness she wants.'

Marsworth's lips twitched.

'Yes, that's true—if you and I can help her out. Cicely!—aren't you a great friend of Sir John Raine?'

He named one of the chiefs of the Army Medical Department, a man whose good word was the making of any aspirant in the field he ruled.

Cicely looked rather darkly at her questioner.

'What do you mean?'

'I want you to help me get an appointment for somebody.'

'For whom?'

'For the man Daisy Stewart wants to marry.'

Cicely could not conceal her start.

'I don't like being mystified,' she said coldly.

Marsworth allowed his smile to shew itself.

'I'm not trying to mystify you in the least. Daisy Stewart has been engaged for nearly a year to one of the house-surgeons in your hospital—young Fellows. Nobody knows it—not Willy even. It has been kept a dead secret, because that wicked old man the Rector won't have it. Daisy makes him comfortable, and he won't give her up, if he can help it. And as young Fellows has nothing but his present pay—a year with board and lodging—it seemed hopeless. But now he has got his eye on something.'

And in a quiet business-like voice Marsworth put the case of the penniless one—his qualifications, his ambitions, and the particular post under the Army Medical Board on which he had set his hopes. If only somebody with influence would give him a leg up!

Cicely interrupted.

'Does Willy know?'

'No. You see, I have come to you first.'

'How long have you known?'

'Since my stay with them last autumn. I suspected something then, just as I was leaving; and Miss Daisy confessed—when I was there in May. Since then she seems to have elected me her chief adviser. But, of course, I had no right to tell anybody anything.'

'That is what you like—to advise people?'

Marsworth considered it.

'There was a time'—he said, at last, in a different voice, 'when my advice used to be asked by someone else—and sometimes taken.'

Cicely pretended to light another cigarette, but her slim fingers shook a little.

'And now—you never give it?'

'Oh yes, I do,' he said, with sudden bitterness—'even unasked. I'm always the same old bore.'

There was silence. His right hand stole towards her left that was lying limply over her knee. Cicely's eyes looking down were occupied with his disabled arm, which, although much improved, was still glad to slip into its sling whenever it was not actively wanted.

But just as he was capturing her, Cicely sprang up.

'I must go and see about Sir John Raine.'

'Cicely—I don't care a brass farthing about Sir John Raine!'

'But having once brought him in, I recommend you to stick to him,' said Cicely, with teasing eyes. 'And don't go advising young women. It's not good for the military. I'm going to take this business in hand.'

And she made for departure, but Marsworth got to the door first, and put his back against it.

'Find me the Turner, Cicely.'

'A man who asks for a thing on false pretences shouldn't have it.'

A silence. Then a meek voice said—

'Captain Marsworth, my brother, Sir William Farrell, will be requiring my services at tea!'

Marsworth moved aside and she forward. But as she neared him, he caught her passionately in his arms and kissed her. She released herself, crimson.

'Do I like being kissed?' she said in a low voice—'do I? Anyway don't do it again!—and if you dare to say a word yet—to anyone—'

Her eyes threatened; but he saw in them revelations her pride could not check, and would have disobeyed her at once; but she was too quick for him. In a second she had opened the door and was gone.

During the rest of the afternoon, her brother and Nelly watched Cicely's proceedings with stupefaction; only equalled by the bewilderment of Miss Daisy Stewart. For that young lady was promoted to the good graces of Sir William's formidable sister with a rapidity and completeness which only natural good manners and good sense could have enabled her to deal with; considering the icy exclusion to which she had been so long condemned. But as she possessed both, she took it very simply; always with the same serene light in her grey eyes.

Marsworth said to himself presently that young Fellows' chances were good. But in truth he hardly remembered anything about them, except that by the help of them he had kissed Cicely! And he had yet to find out what that remarkable fact was to mean, either to himself or to her. She refused to let him take her back to the farm, and she only gave him a finger in farewell. Nor did she say a word of what had happened, even to Nelly.

Nelly spent again a very wakeful night. Farrell had walked home with them, and she understood from him that, although he was going over early to Carton the following morning, he would be at the cottage again before many days were over. It seemed to her that in telling her so he had looked at her with eyes that seemed to implore her to trust him. And she, on hearing it, had been merely dumb and irresponsive, not forbidding or repellent, as she ought to have been. The courage to wound him to the quick—to leave him bereft, to go out into the desert herself, seemed to be more and more oozing away from her.

Yet there beside her bed, on the table which held her Testament, and the few books—almost all given her by W.F.—to which she was wont to turn in her wakeful hours, was George's photograph in uniform. About three o'clock in the morning she lit her candle, and lay looking at it, till suddenly she stretched out her hand for it, kissed it repeatedly, and putting it on her breast, clasped her hands over it, and so fell asleep.

But before she fell asleep, she was puzzled by the sounds in Bridget's room next door. Bridget seemed to be walking about—pacing up and down incessantly. Sometimes the steps would cease; only to begin again after a while with the same monotony. What could be the matter with Bridget? This vague worry about her sister entered into and heightened all Nelly's other troubles. Yet all the same, in the end, she fell asleep; and the westerly wind blowing over Wetherlam, and chasing wild flocks of grey rain-clouds before him, found no one awake in the cottage or the farm to listen to the concert he was making with the fells, but Bridget—and Cicely.

* * * * *

Bridget Cookson had indeed some cause for wakefulness. Locked away in the old workbox, where she kept the papers to which she attached importance, was a letter bearing the imprint 'O.A.S.,' which had been delivered to her on Sunday afternoon by the Grasmere post-mistress. It ran as follows:

'DEAR MISS COOKSON,—I know of course that you are fully convinced the poor fellow we have here in charge has nothing to do with your brother-in-law. But as you saw him, and as the case may throw light on other cases of a similar nature, I thought I would just let you know that owing apparently to the treatment we have been carrying out, there are some very interesting signs of returning consciousness since your visit, though nothing very definite as yet. He is terribly ill, and physically I see no chance for him. But I think he may be able to tell us who he is before the end, in which case I will inform you, lest you should now or at any future time feel the smallest misgiving as to your own verdict in the matter. This is very unlikely, I know, for I understand you were very decided; but still as soon as we have definite information—if we get it—you may wish to inform poor Mrs. Sarratt of your journey here. I hope she is getting stronger. She did indeed look very frail when I saw her last.

'Yours very truly,

'ROBERT HOWSON.'

Since the receipt of that letter Bridget's reflections had been more disagreeable than any she had yet grappled with. In Nelly's company the awfulness of what she had done did sometimes smite home to her. Well, she had staked everything upon it, and the only possible course was to brazen it out. That George should die, and die quickly—without any return of memory or speech, was what she terribly and passionately desired. In all probability he would die quickly; he might even now be dead. She saw the thing perpetually as a race between his returning mind—if he still lived, and it was returning—and his ebbing strength. If she had lived in old Sicilian days, she would have made a waxen image like the Theocritean sorceress, and put it by the fire, that as it wasted, so George might waste. As it was, she passed her time during the forty-eight hours after reading Howson's letter in a silent and murderous concentration on one thought and wish—George Sarratt's speedy death.

What a release indeed for everybody!—if people would only tell the truth, and not dress up their real feelings and interests in stale sentimentalisms. Farrell made happy at no very distant date; Nelly settled for life with a rich man who adored her; her own future secured—with the very modest freedom and opportunity she craved:—all this on the one side—futile tragedy and suffering on the other. None the less, there were moments when, with a start, she realised what other people might think of her conduct. But after all she could always plead it was a mistake—an honest mistake. Are there not constantly cases in the law courts, which shew how easy it is to fail in identifying the right person, or to persist in identifying the wrong one?

During the days before Farrell returned, the two sisters were alone together. Bridget would gladly have gone away out of sight and hearing of Nelly. But she did not dare to leave the situation—above all, the postman—unwatched. Meanwhile Nelly made repeated efforts to break down the new and inexplicable barrier which seemed to have arisen between herself and Bridget. Why would Bridget always sit alone in that chilly outside room, which even with a large fire seemed to Nelly uninhabitable? She tried to woo her sister, by all the small devices in her power.

'Why won't you come and sit with me a bit, Bridget? I'm so dull all alone!'—she would say when, after luncheon or high tea, Bridget showed signs of immediately shutting herself up again.

'I can't. I must do some work.'

'Do tell me what you're doing, Bridget?'

'Oh, you wouldn't understand.'

'Well, other people don't always think me a born idiot!'—Nelly would say, not without resentment. 'I really could understand, Bridget, if you'd try.'

'I haven't the time.'

'And you're killing yourself with so many hours of it. Why should you slave so? If you only would come and help me sometimes with the Red Cross work, I'd do any needlework for you, that you wanted.'

'You know I hate needlework.'

'You're not doing anything—not anything—for the war, Bridget!' Nelly would venture, wistfully, at last.

'There are plenty of people to do things for the war. I didn't want the war! Nobody asked my opinion.'

And presently the door would shut, and Nelly would be left to watch the torrents of rain outside, and to endeavour by reading and drawing, by needlework and the society of her small friend Tommy, whenever she could capture him, to get through the day. She pined for Hester, but Hester was doing Welfare work in a munition factory at Leeds, and could not be got at.

So there she sat alone, brooding and planning, too timid to talk to Bridget of her own schemes, and, in her piteous indecision, longing guiltily for Farrell's return. Meanwhile she had written to several acquaintances who were doing V.A.D. work in various voluntary hospitals, to ask for information.

Suddenly, after the rain came frost and north wind—finally snow; the beginning in the north of the fiercest winter Western Europe has known for many years. Over heights and dales alike spread the white Leveller, melting by day in the valley bottoms, and filling up his wastage by renewed falls at night. Nelly ventured out sometimes to look at the high glories of Wetherlam and the Pikes, under occasional gleams of sun. Bridget never put a foot out of doors, except when she went to the garden gate to look for the postman in the road, and take the letters from him.

At last, one evening, when after a milder morning a bitter blast from the north springing up at dusk had, once more, sent gusts of snow scudding over the fells, Nelly's listening ear heard the well-known step at the gate. She sprang up with a start of joy. She had been so lonely, so imprisoned with her own sad thoughts. The coming of this kind, strong man, so faithful to his small friend through all the stress of his busy and important life, made a sudden impression upon her, which brought the tears to her eyes. She thought of Carton, of its splendid buildings, and the great hospital which now absorbed them; she seemed to see Farrell as the king of it all, the fame of his doings spreading every month over the north, and wiping out all that earlier conception of him as a dilettante and an idler of which she had heard from Hester. And yet, escaping from all that activity, that power, that constant interest and excitement, here he was, making use of his first spare hour to come through the snow and the dark, just to spend an hour with Nelly Sarratt, just to cheer her lonely little life.

Nelly ran to the window and opened it.

'Is that really you?' she called, joyously, while the snow drifted against her face.

Farrell, carrying a lantern, was nearing the porch. The light upon his face as he turned shewed her his look of delight.

'I'm later than I meant, but the roads are awful. May I walk in?'

She ran down to meet him; then hung back rather shyly in the passage, while he took off his overcoat and shook the snow from his beard.

'Have you any visitors?' he asked, still dusting away the snow.

'Only Bridget. I asked Hester, but she couldn't come.'

He came towards her along the narrow passage, to the spot where she stood tremulous on the lowest step of the stairs. A lamp burning on a table revealed her slight figure in black, the warm white of her throat and face, the grace of the bending head, and the brown hair wreathed about it. He saw her as an exquisite vision in a dim light and shade. But it was not that which broke down his self-control so much as the pathetic look in her dark eyes, the look of one who is glad, and yet shrinks from her own gladness—tragically conscious of her own weakness, and yet happy in it. It touched his heart so profoundly that whether the effect was pain or pleasure he could not have told. But as he reached the step, moved by an irresistible impulse, he held out his arms, and she melted into them. For one entrancing instant, he held her close and warm upon his breast, while the world went by.

But the next moment she had slipped away, and was sitting on the step, her face in her hands.

He did not plead or excuse himself. He just stood by her endeavouring to still and control his pulses—till at last she looked up. The lamp shewed her his face, and the passion in it terrified her. For there had been no passion in her soft and sudden yielding. Only the instinct of the child that is forsaken and wants comforting, that feels love close to it, and cannot refuse it.

'There, you see!' she said, desperately—'You see—I must go!'

'No! It's I who must go. Unless '—his voice sank almost to a whisper—'Nelly!—couldn't you—marry me? You should never, never regret it.'

She shook her head, and as she dropped her face again in her hands he saw a shudder run through her. At the sight his natural impulse was to let passion have its way, to raise her in his arms again, and whisper to her there in the dark, as love inspired him, his cheek on hers. But he did not venture. He was well aware of something intangible and incalculable in Nelly that could not be driven. His fear of it held him in check. He knew that she was infinitely sorry for him and tender towards him. But he knew too that she was not in love with him. Only—he would take his chance of that, if only she would marry him.

'Dear!' he said, stooping to her, and touching her dark curls with his hand. 'Let's call in Hester! She's dreadfully wise! If you were with her I should feel happy—I could wait. But it is when I see you so lonely here—and so sad—nobody to care for you!—that I can't bear it!'

Through the rush of the wind, a sound of someone crossing the yard behind the farm came to their ears. Nelly sprang to her feet and led the way upstairs. Farrell followed her, and as they moved, they heard Bridget open the back door and come in.

The little sitting-room was bright with lamp and fire, and Farrell, perceiving that they were no longer to be alone, and momentarily expecting Bridget's entrance, put impatience aside and began to talk of his drive from Carton.

'The wind on Dunmail Raise was appalling, and the lamps got so be-snowed, we had to be constantly clearing them. But directly we got down into the valley it mended, and I managed to stop at the post-office, and ask if there were any letters for you. There were two—and a telegram. What have I done with them?' He began to search in his pockets, his wits meanwhile in such a whirl that it was difficult for him to realise what he was doing.

At that point Bridget opened the door. He turned to shake hands with her, and then resumed his fumbling.

'I'm sure they did give them to me'—he said, in some concern,—'two letters and a telegram.'

'A telegram!' said Bridget, suddenly, hurrying forward,—'it must be for me.'

She peremptorily held out her hand, and as she did so, Nelly caught sight of her sister. Startled out of all other thoughts she too made a step forward. What was wrong with Bridget? The tall, gaunt woman stood there livid, her eyes staring at Farrell, her hand unsteady as she thrust it towards him.

'Give me the telegram, please! I was expecting one,' she said, trying to speak as usual.

Farrell turned to her in surprise.

'But it wasn't for you, Miss Cookson. It was for Mrs. Sarratt. I saw the address quite plainly. Ah, here they are. How stupid of me! What on earth made me put them in that pocket.'

He drew out the letters and the telegram. Bridget said again—'Give it me, please! I know it's for me!' And she tried to snatch it. Farrell's face changed. He disliked Bridget Cookson heartily, mainly on Nelly's account, and her rude persistence nettled a temper accustomed to command. He quietly put her aside.

'When your sister has read it, Miss Cookson, she will no doubt let you see it. As it happens, the post-mistress made me promise to give it to Mrs. Sarratt myself. She seemed interested—I don't know why.'

Nelly took it. Farrell—who began to have some strange misgiving—stood between her and Bridget. Bridget made no further movement. Her eyes were fixed on Nelly.

Nelly, bewildered by the little scene and by Bridget's extraordinary behaviour, tore open the brown envelope, and read slowly—'Please come at once. Have some news for you. Your sister will explain. Howson, Base Headquarters, X———, France.'

'Howson?' said Nelly. Then the colour began to ebb from her face. 'Dr. Howson?' she repeated. 'What news? What does he mean? Oh!'—the cry rang through the room—'it's George!—it's George! he's found!—he's found!'

She thrust the telegram piteously into Farrell's hands. He read it, and turned to Bridget.

'What does Dr. Howson mean, Miss Cookson, and why does he refer Mrs.
Sarratt to you?'

For some seconds she could not make her pale lips reply. Finally, she said—'That's entirely my own affair, Sir William. I shall tell my sister, of course. But Nelly had better go at once, as Dr. Howson advises. I'll go and see to things.'

She turned slowly away. Nelly ran forward and caught her.

'Oh, Bridget—don't go—you mustn't go! What news is it? Bridget, tell me!—you couldn't—you couldn't be so cruel—not to tell me—if you knew anything about George!'

Bridget stood silent.

'Oh, what can I do—what can I do?' cried Nelly.

Then her eyes fell on the letters still in her hand. She tore one open—and read it—with mingled cries of anguish and joy. Farrell dared not go near her. There seemed already a gulf between her and him.

'It's from Miss Eustace'—she said, panting, as she looked up at last, and handed the letter to him—it's George—he's alive—they've heard from France—he asks for me—but—but—he's dying.'

Her head dropped forward a little. She caught at the back of a chair, nearly fainting. But when Farrell approached her, she put up a hand in protest.

'No, no,—I'm all right. But, Bridget, Miss Eustace says—you've actually seen him—you've been to France. When did you go?'

'About three weeks ago,' said Bridget, after a moment's pause. 'Oh, of course I know'—she threw back her head defiantly—'you'll all set on me—you'll all blame me. But I suppose I may be mistaken like anybody else—mayn't I? I didn't think the man I saw was George—I didn't! And what was the good of disturbing your mind?'

But as she told the lie, she told it so lamely and unconvincingly that neither of the other two believed it for a moment. Nelly stood up—tottering—but mistress of herself. She looked at Farrell.

'Sir William—can you take me to Windermere, for the night-train? I know when it goes—10.20. I'll be ready—by nine.' She glanced at the clock, which was just nearing seven.

'Of course,' said Farrell, taking up his hat. 'I'll go and see to the motor. But'—he looked at her with entreaty—'you can't go this long journey alone!'

The words implied a bitter consciousness that his own escort was impossible. Nelly did not notice it. She only said impatiently—

'But, of course, I must go alone.'

She stood silent—mastering the agony within—forcing herself to think and will. When the pause was over, she said quietly—'I will be quite ready at nine.' And then mechanically—'It's very good of you.'

He went away, passing Bridget, who stood with one foot on the fender, staring down into the fire.

When the outer door had closed upon him, Nelly looked at her sister. She was trembling all over.

'Bridget—why did you do it?' The voice was low and full of horror.

'What do you mean? I made a mistake—that's all!'

'Bridget—you knew it was George! You couldn't be mistaken. Miss Eustace says—in the letter'—she pointed to it—'they asked you about his hands. Do you remember how you used to mock at them?'

'As if one could remember after a year and a half!'

'No, you couldn't forget, Bridget—a thing like that—I know you couldn't. And what made you do it! Did you think I had forgotten George?'

At that the tears streamed down her face, unheeded. She approached her sister piteously.

'Bridget, tell me what he looked like! Did you speak to him—did you see his eyes open? Oh my poor George!—and I here—never thinking of him'—she broke off incoherently, twisting her hands. 'Miss Eustace says he was wounded in two places—severely—that she's afraid there's no hope. Did they say that to you, Bridget—tell me!—for Heaven's sake tell me!'

'You'll make yourself ill,' said Bridget harshly. 'You'd better lie down, and let me pack for you.'

Nelly laughed out.

'As if I'd ever let you do anything for me any more! No, that's done with. You've been so accustomed to manage me all these years. You thought you could manage me now—you thought you could let George die—and I should never know—and you'd make me marry—William Farrell. Bridget—I hate you!'

She broke off, shivering, but resumed almost at once—'I see it all—I think I see it all. And now it's all done for between you and me. If George dies, I shall never come back to live with you again. You'd better make plans, Bridget. It's over for ever.'

'You don't know what you're saying, now,' said Bridget, coldly.

Nelly did not hear her, she was lost in a whirl of images and thoughts. And governed by them she went up to Bridget again, thrusting her small white face under her sister's eyes.

'What sort of a room was he in, Bridget? Who was nursing him? Are you sure he didn't know you? Did you call him by his name? Did you make him understand?'

'He knew nobody,' said Bridget, drawing back, against her will, before the fire in Nelly's wild eyes. 'He was in a very good room. There was a nurse sitting with him.'

'Was he—was he very changed?'

'Of course he was. If not, I should have known him.'

Nelly half smiled. Bridget could never have thought that soft mouth capable of so much scorn. But no words came. Then Nelly walked away to a drawer where she kept her accounts, her cheque-book, and any loose money she might be in possession of. She took out her cheque-book and some two or three pounds that lay there.

'If you want money, I can lend you some,' said Bridget, catching at the old note of guardianship.

'Thank you. But I shall not want it.'

'Nelly, don't be a fool!' said Bridget, stung at last into speech. 'Suppose all you think is true—I don't admit it, mind—but suppose it's true. How was I doing such a terrible wrong to you?—in the eyes, I mean, of sensible people—in not disturbing your mind. Nobody expected—that man I saw—to know anybody again—or to live more than a few days. Even if I had been certain—and how could I be certain?—wasn't it reasonable to weigh one thing against another? You know very well—it's childish to ignore it—what's been going on here——'

But she paused. Nelly, writing a letter, was not apparently concerned with anything Bridget had been saying. It did not seem to have reached her ears. A queer terror shot through Bridget. But she dismissed it. As if Nelly could ever really get on without her. Little, feckless, sentimental thing!

Nelly finished her letter and put it up.

'I have written to Sir William's agent, Bridget'—she said turning towards her sister—'to say that I give up the farm. I shall pay the servant. Hester will look after my things, and send them—when I want them.'

'Why Hester?' said Bridget, with something of a sneer.

Nelly did not answer. She put up her letter, took the money and the cheque-book and went out of the room. Bridget heard her call their one servant, Mrs. Dowson, and presently steps ascended the stairs and Nelly's door shut. The sound of the shutting door roused in her again that avenging terror. Her first impulse was to go and force herself into Nelly's room, so as to manage and pack for her as usual. But something stopped her. She consoled herself by going down to the kitchen to look after the supper. Nelly, of course, must have some food before her night journey.

Behind that shut door, Nelly was looking into the kind weather-beaten face of Mrs. Dowson.

'Mrs. Dowson, I'm going away to-night—and I'm not coming back. Sir
William knows.'

Then she caught the woman's gnarled hands, and her own features began to work.

'Mrs. Dowson, they've found my husband! Did Sir William tell you? He's not dead—he's alive—But he's very, very ill.'

'Oh, you poor lamb!' cried Mrs. Dowson. 'No—Sir William tellt me nowt.
The Lord be gracious to you!' Bathed in sudden tears, she kissed one of
the hands that held hers, pouring out incoherent words of hope. But
Nelly did not cry, and presently she said firmly—

'Now, please, you must help me to pack. Sir William will be here at nine.'

Presently all was ready. Nelly had hunted out an old grey travelling dress in which George had often seen her, and a grey hat with a veil. She hastily put all her black clothes aside.

'Miss Martin will send me anything I want. I have asked her to come and fetch my things.'

'But Miss Cookson will be seein' to that!' said Mrs. Dowson wondering. Nelly made no reply. She locked her little box, and then stood upright, looking round the small room. She seemed to be saying 'Good-bye' for ever to the Nelly who had lived, and dreamed, and prayed there. She was going to George—that was all she knew.

Downstairs, Bridget was standing at the door of the little dining-room. 'I have put out some cold meat for you,' she said, stiffly. 'You won't get anything for a long time.'

Nelly acquiesced. She drank some tea, and ate as much as she could. Neither she nor Bridget spoke, till Bridget, who was at the window looking out into the snow, turned round to say—'Here's the motor.'

Nelly rose, and tied her veil on closely. Mrs. Dowson brought her a thick coat, which had been part of her trousseau, and wrapped her in it.

'You had better take your grey shawl,' said Bridget.

'I have it here, Miss,' said Mrs. Dowson, producing it. 'I'll put it over her in the motor.'

She disappeared to open the door to Sir William's knock.

Nelly turned to her sister.

'Good-bye, Bridget.'

Bridget flamed out.

'And you don't mean to write to me? You mean to carry out this absurd plan of separation!'

'I don't know what I shall do—till I have seen George,' said Nelly steadily. 'He'll settle for me. Only you and I are not sisters any more.'

Bridget shrugged her shoulders, with some angry remark about 'theatrical nonsense.' Nelly went out into the passage, threw her arms about Mrs. Dowson's neck, for a moment, and then hurried out towards the car. It stood there in the falling snow, its bright lights blazing on the bit of Westmorland wall opposite, and the overhanging oaks, still heavy with dead leaf. Farrell was standing at the door, holding a fur rug. He and Mrs. Dowson tucked it in round Nelly's small cloaked figure.

Then without a word, Farrell shut the door of the car, and took the seat beside the driver. In another minute Bridget was watching the lights of the lamps rushing along the sides of the lane, till at a sharp bend of the road it disappeared.

There was a break presently in the snow-fall, and as they reached the shores of Windermere, Nelly was aware of struggling gleams of moonlight on steely water. The anguish in her soul almost resented the break in the darkness. She was going to George; but George was dying, and while he had been lying there in his lonely suffering, she had been forgetting him, and betraying him. The recollection of Farrell's embrace overwhelmed her with a crushing sense of guilt. George indeed should never know. But that made no difference to her own misery.

The miles flew by. She began to think of her journey, to realise her helplessness and inexperience in the practical things of life. She must get her passport, and some money. Who would advise her, and tell her how to get to France under war conditions? Would she be allowed to go by the short sea passage? For that she knew a special permit was necessary. Could she get it at once, or would she be kept waiting in town? The notion of having to wait one unnecessary hour tortured her. Then her thoughts fastened on Miss Eustace of the Enquiry Office, who had written her the letter which had arrived simultaneously with Dr. Howson's telegram. 'Let me know if I can be of any use to you, for your journey. If there is anything you want to know that we can help you in, you had better come straight to this office.'

Yes, that she would do. But the train arrived in London at 7 A.M. And she could not possibly see Miss Eustace before ten or eleven. She must just sit in the waiting-room till it was time. And she must get some money. She had her cheque-book and would ask Sir William to tell her how to get a cheque cashed in London. She was ashamed of her own ignorance in these small practical matters.

The motor stopped. Sir William jumped down, but before he came to open the door for her, she saw him turn round and wave his hand to two persons standing outside the station. They hurried towards the motor, and as Nelly stepped down from it, she felt herself grasped by eager hands.

'You poor darling! I thought we couldn't be in time. But we flew. Don't trouble about anything. We've done it all.'

Cicely!—and behind her Marsworth.

Nelly drew back.

'Dear Cicely!' she said faintly—'but I can manage—I can manage quite well.'

Resistance, however, was useless. Marsworth and Cicely, it seemed, were going to London with her—Cicely probably to France; and Marsworth had already telegraphed about her passport. She would have gladly gone by herself, but she finally surrendered—for George's sake, that she might get to him the quicker.

Then everything was done for her. Amid the bustle of the departing train, she was piteously aware of Farrell, and just before they started, she leant out to give him her hand.

'I will tell George all you have done for me,' she said, gulping down a sob.

He pressed her hand before releasing it, but said nothing. What was there to say? Meanwhile, Cicely, to ease the situation, was chattering hard, describing how Farrell had sent his chauffeur to Ambleside on a motor bicycle, immediately after leaving Nelly, and so had got a telephone message through to Cicely.

'We had the small car out and ready in ten minutes, and, by good luck, there was a motor-transport man on leave, who had come to see a brother in the hospital. We laid hands on him, and he drove us here. But it's a mercy we're not sitting on the Raise! You remember that heap of stones on the top of the Raise, that thing they say is a barrow—the grave of some old British party before the Flood?—well, the motor gave out there! Herbert and the chauffeur sat under it in the snow and worked at it. I thought the river was coming over the road, and that the wind would blow us all away. But it'll be all right for your crossing to-morrow—the storm will have quite gone down. Herbert thinks you'll start about twelve o'clock,—and you'll be at the camp that same night. Oh, isn't it wonderful!—isn't it ripping?' cried Cicely under her breath, stooping down to kiss Nelly, while the two men talked at the carriage window.—'You're going to get him home! We'll have the best men in London to look after him. He'll pull through, you'll see—he'll pull through!'

Nelly sank into a seat and closed her eyes. Cicely's talk—why did she call Marsworth 'Herbert'?—was almost unbearable to her. She knew through every vein that she was going across the Channel—to see George die. If only she were in time!—if only she might hold him in her arms once more! Would the train never go?

Farrell, in spite of snow and storm, pushed his way back to Carton that night. In that long motor drive a man took counsel with himself on whom the war had laid a chastening and refining hand. The human personality cannot spend itself on tasks of pity and service without taking the colour of them, without rising insensibly to the height of them. They may have been carelessly adopted, or imposed from without. But the mere doing of them exalts. As the dyer's hand is 'subdued to what it works in,' so the man that is always about some generous business for his fellow-men suffers thereby, insensibly, a change, which is part of the 'heavenly alchemy' for ever alive in the world. It was so at any rate with William Farrell. The two years of his hospital work—hard, honest grappling with the problems of human pain and its relief—had made a far nobler man of him. So now, in this solitary hour, he looked his trouble—courageously, chivalrously—in the face. The crash of all his immediate hopes was bitter indeed. What matter! Let him think only of those two poor things about to meet in France.

As to the future, he was well aware of the emotional depths in Nelly's nature. George Sarratt's claim upon her life and memory would now be doubly strong. For, with that long and intimate observation of the war which his hospital experience had brought him, Farrell was keenly aware of the merciful fact that the mere distance which, generally speaking, the war imposes between the man dying on the battle-field and those who love him at home, inevitably breaks the blow. The nerves of the woman who loses her husband or her son are, at least, not tortured by the actual sight of his wounds and death. The suffering is spiritual, and the tender benumbing touch of religion or patriotism, or the remaining affections of life, has less to fight with than when the physical senses themselves are racked with acute memories of bodily wounds and bodily death. It is not that sorrow is less deep, or memory less tenacious; but both are less ruinous to the person sorrowing. So, at least, Farrell had often seen it, among even the most loving and passionate of women. Nelly's renascence in the quiet Westmorland life had been a fresh instance of it; and he had good reason for thinking that, but for the tragic reappearance of George Sarratt, it would not have taken very long,—a few months more, perhaps—before she would have been persuaded to let herself love, and be loved again.

But now, every fibre in her delicate being—physical and spiritual—would be racked by the sight of Sarratt's suffering and death. And no doubt—pure, scrupulous little soul!—she would be tormented by the thought of what had just passed between herself and him, before the news from France arrived. He might as well look that in the face.

Well!—patience and time—there was nothing else to look to. He braced himself to both, as he sped homeward through the high snowy roads, and dropped through sleeping Keswick to Bassenthwaite and Carton. Then with the sight of the hospital, the Red Cross flag drooping above its doorway, as he drove up to it, the burden and interest of his great responsibilities returned upon him. He jumped out to say a few cheery words of thanks to his chauffeur, and went on with a rapid step to his office on the ground floor, where he found important letters and telegrams awaiting him. He dealt with them till far into the night. But the thought of Nelly never really left him; nor that haunting physical memory of her soft head upon his shoulder.