Then things changed apace.
Beachbourne, for at least a thousand years before William the Norman landed at Pevensey on his great adventure, had been looked on as the likeliest spot for enemy invasion from the Continent. Frenzied parents therefore wired for their children to be sent inland at once; others wrote charming letters cancelling rooms taken weeks before. In ten days the house was empty; and on the eleventh the mortgagee intimated his intention to fore-close.
It was a staggering blow.
The Colonel, with that uncannie cat-like intuition of his she knew so well, prowled in, looked at her with kind eyes, as she sat in her little room the fatal letter in her hand, and went out again.
Throughout it had been her scheme, not his, her responsibility, her success; and now it was her failure.
Then Mr. Trupp was shown in, looking most unmilitary in his uniform of a Colonel of the Royal Army Medical Corps.
"It's all right," he said gruffly. "I know. Morgan and Evans rang me up and told me. Unprofessional perhaps, but these are funny times. I let you in. You built the hostel at my request. I shall take over the mortgage."
"I couldn't let you," answered the little lady.
"You won't be asked," replied the other. "I ought to have done it from the start; but it wasn't very convenient then. It's all right now." The old man didn't say that the reason it was all right was because he was quietly convinced in his own mind that his boy Joe would need no provision now.
Just then the Colonel entered, looking self-conscious. He seemed to know all about it, as indeed he had every right to do, seeing that Mr. Trupp had informed him at length on the telephone half an hour before.