"Well, wait a minute."
Grace stood still and put the lamp on the ground while she felt in her coat-pocket.
"I thought so. I've a packet of chocolate. Will you take it?"
"Thank you," said Trevellyan seriously; "it's very kind of you. Let's both have some."
Grace divided the little packet scrupulously, and they stood and ate it with their backs to the hedge, the bag and the lamp on the ground in front of them.
"Christmas Eve!" said Grace. "Isn't it extraordinary?"
"Where were you last Christmas?" he asked.
"In the hospital, near my home. We were decorating the wards for Christmas, and all stayed there very late. There was a convoy in, too, I remember; the nurses stayed on long after we'd all gone home. I was only a clerk, you know."
"I remember. You told me that when you—on the night of the air-raid," said the tactful Trevellyan, with a very evident recollection of the unfortunate disability which debarred Miss Jones from the nursing profession.
Grace laughed.