"All right, Pierre; we have been looking for it for so long, that it comes almost as a surprise at last."
Cuthbert got up, made himself a cup of coffee, drank it with a piece of dry bread, and then sallied out. Mary would be on duty at ten o'clock. He knew the road she took on her way to the hospital and should meet her. In half an hour he saw the trim figure in the dark dress, and the white band round the arm.
"I suppose you have heard that we are going to stir up the German nest to-morrow," he said gayly.
"Yes, I have heard," she said, sadly, "it is very dreadful."
"It is what we have been waiting for and longing for for the last two months. We are to be under arms at daybreak, and as you will be at the ambulance for the next twenty-four hours I thought I would make an effort to catch you on the way. I want you to come round to my lodgings."
She looked surprised.
"Of course I will come," she said frankly, "but what do you want me to do that for?"
"Well, there is no saying as to who will come back again tomorrow, Mary, and I want you to see my two pictures. I have been working at them for the last two months steadily. They are not quite finished yet, but another week would have been enough for the finishing touches, but I don't suppose you will miss them. Nobody has seen them yet, and nobody would have seen them till they were quite ready, but as it is possible they never may be finished I should like you to see them now. I am not taking you up under any false pretences," he said, lightly, "nor to try again to get you to change your mission. I only want you to see that I have been working honestly. I could see when I have spoken of my painting there was always a little incredulity in the way in which you listened to me. You had so completely made up your mind that I should never be earnest about anything that you could not bring yourself to believe that I wasn't amusing myself with art here, just as I did in London. I had intended to have brought them triumphantly in a fiacre to your place, when they were finished, and I can't deny myself the pleasure of disabusing your mind. It is not far out of your way, and if we walk fast you can still arrive at your ambulance in time. If there were any fiacres about I would call one, but they have quite disappeared. In the first place, because no one is rich enough to be able to pay for such luxuries, and in the second, because most of the horses have been turned to other uses."
She did not seem to pay very much attention to what he was saying, but broke in with the question—
"Do you think there will be much fighting?"