I stayed in it so long that my sister-in-law became anxious and tapped at the door to know if I were all right. All right! Before I was properly dressed—but running about the house most shamelessly for all that—my brother arrived.
It was good to see him again,—very good. We “foregathered,”—what?
And the next morning scandalously early, the breakfast things still on the table, found me face to face once more with the woman who had brought me back to life. All that nightmare was immediately washed away for ever. It was past. The future was too vague for imaginings but the present was the most golden thing I had ever known.
PART II
UBIQUE
1
The Division of Field Artillery to which I was posted by the War Office was training at Bulford up to its neck in mud, but the brigade had moved to Fleet two days before I joined. By that time—it was a good fifteen days since I had come home—I had grown accustomed to the feel and splendour of a Sam Browne belt and field boots and the recurring joy of being saluted not merely by Tommies but by exalted beings like sergeants and sergeant-majors; and I felt mentally as well as physically clean.