The Duchess took her hand and patted it with firm gentleness.
"You mustn't, my dear. You must try hard not to do it. We shall be of no use if we let our minds go. We must try to force ourselves into a sort of deafness and blindness in certain directions. I am trying—with all my might."
"I know I must," Robin answered not too steadily. "I must—more than most people. I'm not brave and strong. I'm weak and cowardly—cowardly." Her breath caught itself and she went on quickly, "Work helps more than anything else. I want to work all the time. Please may I begin the letters now?"
She was bending over her desk when Lord Coombe came in earlier than was his custom. The perfection of his dress, his smooth creaselessness and quiet harmony of color and line seemed actually to add to the aged look of his face. His fine rigidity was worn and sallowed. After his greeting phrases he stood for a space quite silent while the Duchess watched him as if waiting.
"He has gone?" she said presently. She spoke in quite a low voice, but it reached Robin's desk.
"Yes. At dawn. The suddenness and secrecy of these goings add to the poignancy of them. I saw him but he did not see me. I found out the hour and made an effort. He is not my boy, but I wanted to look at him. It was perhaps for the last time. Good God! What a crime!"
He spoke low himself and rather quickly and with a new tone in his voice—as if he had been wrenched and was in pain.
"I am not in a heroic mood. I was only sick and furious when I watched them go by. They were a handsome, clean-built lot. But he stood out—the finest among them. His mere beauty and strength brought hideous thoughts into one's mind—thoughts of German deviltries born of hell."
Robin was looking at her hand which had stopped writing. She could not keep it still. She must get up and go to her own rooms. Would her knees shake under her like that when she tried to stand on her feet? The low talking went on and she scarcely heard what was said. She and Donal had always known this was coming; they had known it even the first day they had talked together in the Garden. The knowledge had been the spectre always waiting hidden at some turn in the path ahead. That was why they had been so frightened and desperate and hurried. They had clung together and shut their eyes and caught at the few hours—the few heavenly hours. He had said it would come suddenly. But she had not thought it would be as sudden as this. Last night a soldier had brought a few wild, passionate blotted lines to her. Yes, they had been blotted and blistered. She pushed her chair back and began to rise from it.