'Acquainted with grief.'
CHAPTER I
'I fled Him, down the nights and down the days:
I fled Him, down the arches of the years:
I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind: and in a mist of tears
I hid from Him.'
Hound of Heaven.
Another fortnight has slipped away. I have had one little note from Ross in which he sent me 'all his love,' and now, how can I write the news I have to tell?
Three days ago (ah, what an eternity it seems) I was ordering the dinner, for I am stronger now, and able to do the usual things.
Uncle Jasper and Aunt Constance were due to arrive in time for lunch. Captain Everard was to dine that night, and I had just said to cook, 'Extra good to-night, please, Dulcie, because he is a very special friend of my brother's' when the S.P. came into the kitchen with rather a startled look, and said, 'Captain Everard has arrived already, ma'am.' When I saw his face, I knew.
'It's Ross,' I said. 'So soon?'
Yes, directly he got over. He must have been rushed straight up to the trenches. How can I tell you, Mrs Ellsley?'
'See, I am quite calm,' I said, 'please, tell me just the truth.'
So he told me the little that he knew, how very early in the morning he had received a telegram, (as Ross in his dear thoughtfulness had wished any such news to go first to him and not to me.) He said that Ross was wounded very desperately, and he had come himself to take me to the coast.