Margaret handed her a cup of tea. "Drink that and run back to bed.
No—hop into mine and keep warm. Haven't you slept?"
Betty drank the tea and drew the dressing-gown closer round her young form. "I couldn't sleep. The firing . . . No, I'm quite warm, thanks. But it got on my nerves lying there waiting for it to get light. I heard you moving, and I got up." She passed her hand over her eyes. "After the last time I kept seeing those poor things. . . . I don't mind once we start—I don't mind the operating-table. It's when they come in . . . like dumb things—trying to smile, with their mouths all screwed up and tight." She caught her breath half hysterically.
Margaret put down her cup quickly and sat down by the girl's side.
"Betty! Don't talk like that. You mustn't think about it in that way.
Listen——"
"It's easy to be calm when you haven't any—anybody out there in the
North Sea belonging to you. But I've got a brother and a—and he's a
Gunnery Lieutenant," ended Betty a little feebly.
"I know, dear. But you mustn't go to pieces when we all want every bit of pluck and steadiness. We're getting used to it now, too—and I'm sure your brother would like to think you were being as brave as—as he. . . ." She turned her head and stared out of the window. Was she a hypocrite, she wondered, to try to preach to anyone the virtue of womanly courage when her own heart was sick with she knew not what?
Betty stood up. "I'm a fool," she said abruptly. "Can I come with you? Could you wait ten minutes while I put my riding things on? Miss Dacre said I could take her horse when I wanted to—will you wait for me, Margaret? I'll ride down to the sea with you."
Margaret nodded and rose, too. "I'll get the horses saddled while you dress. . . . Bring some biscuits."
She descended the broad oak stairway, crossed the hall, and opened the door of a little room adjoining the main entrance. It was her day sanctum—in scholastic days, the matron's sitting-room, a small apartment, with pretty chintz-covered furniture, and roses in bowls on the table and bookstands. Margaret unhooked a pair of field-glasses hanging on the wall, and passed out into the early morning sunlight.
Betty joined her ten minutes later in the stables, and together they mounted and rode down the long avenue, bordered by firs, out on to the open wold that commanded a view of the sea.
With the dewy turf under them, they shook their impatient horses into a canter until they reached the highest point of a bluff promontory that stretched out into the sea. Here they reined in and scanned the horizon, side by side.