"Miss Bannister that was," he murmured to her one evening. "Married poor young Mr. Seaton who came here for two or three years."
"Why poor?" boomed his august listener.
"He was killed in the war," he returned. "She is a widow."
"So one would be led to assume." Mrs. Garrett regarded him judicially. "Unless she has married again."
The manager shrugged deprecating shoulders and passed on. The idea as mentioned by Mrs. Garrett seemed almost indecent.
"We must be very good to her," ordered that lady after dinner in the lounge. "She is, after all, one of us."
Ruth Bannister had married Jimmy Seaton the summer before the war. There had been the time when he was training, and then those wonderful snatched interludes of leave, when nothing mattered save the present. And then had come the news. For a week she heard nothing—no letter, no field service postcard. On the eighth day there came a telegram from the War Office, and the suspense was over.
It seemed impossible. Other men might be killed: other names might appear in the casualty lists—but not Jimmy. Oh! no, not Jimmy—her Jimmy. There never had been such a marriage as theirs: not a quarrel, not a cross word the whole time. And now Jimmy was gone. Somewhere out in that filthy field of mud he was lying, and the eyes that had smiled at her were staring and sightless. Dear God! but it was too cruel....
Never again could she look at another man. Her body was still alive—but her soul, her spirit were dead. They were buried with Jimmy.
"You'll find me just the same, old man," she used to say out loud sometimes—"just the same. There'll never be anyone else, Jimmy—never, never."