The man who had been kneeling rose to his feet, and the two stood before her as if awaiting orders. Outside the entrance a motor ambulance arrived and drew up with throbbing engine.
"The mortuary——" she began. "No—bring him here . . . out of all this." She walked across the hall and opened the door of the small room on the left of the entrance. The scent of roses greeted them: it was the room from which she had fetched her glasses early in the morning.
The two men deposited the stretcher on the floor and came out, glancing at her white face as they passed. "Shall we carry on, Sister?"
"What? . . . Oh, yes, please."
They saluted awkwardly, and left her standing irresolute, as if dazed, in the midst of all the bustle and traffic of suffering.
He had come back to her. Torps, who in life had never broken his word, was also faithful to it in death.
2
The journey across the lawn to one of the seats in the shelter of the clipped hedge of evergreens was accomplished at length.
The Indiarubber Man lowered himself with a little grimace into the seat, and laid the crutches down beside him. One leg, encased in splints and bandages, was stiffly outstretched on a stool in front of him; his uniform cap—a very disreputable one, with a tarnished badge—was perched on top of the bandages that still swathed his head.
"Phew!" he said; "thank you. That was a bit of a Marathon, wasn't it?"
He measured the distance across the lawn with a humorous eye.