"When the war is over, you and my boy Bernard will live here together, and be as happy as crickets."
"It is very, very dear of you to say so, father." Sudden tears glistened in her eyes. She clasped the Colonel's old, frail fingers in hers. In that moment it seemed to her that he was the only friend she possessed in the world.
So far as John was concerned, Elaine dared not let herself think. The strange scene in the south room had burnt itself into her brain. John's tremendous anxiety to get away from her, together with the undoubted fact that he loved her, was bewildering beyond solution. The thought that her husband had reverted to the drug habit had long been discarded. None of the symptoms that had marked him in the early days of their marriage were present—he was as another man in her eyes. She loved him—she was afraid, and she was bewildered. Every post that came found her anxiously awaiting a letter from John. But none came; two eventless days passed. But upon the evening of the second day after John's departure a dramatic mischance that had been impending—that had, indeed, been inevitable from the beginning—occurred.
Elaine had made her way alone into the grounds. Her mood was one that called for solitude, and in the quiet of the long, fir-treed avenue, the drive which led from the mansion to the road, she found the seclusion she needed. The evening was clear, and through tree-stems the ocean, glassily blue and empty of shipping, spread to the far horizon. The scene was calm, reposeful—everything, in fact, a troubled spirit could require.
Presently, however, the entrance gate at the end of the drive was pushed open. A young man in a green felt hat and wearing stiff Sunday clothes came into the drive and walked slowly forward. Elaine, as the stranger drew near, noticed that he was a youth, little more than twenty, wearing a service-rendered badge. The young man wore his green hat slightly on one side—his complexion was fresh, his cheeks ruddy, and his general expression one of amiable stupidity.
Elaine glanced at him and was about to pass, thinking he carried a message to the house, when the visitor halted in his walk and sheepishly lifted his hat. As he halted he drew from his pocket a crumpled, rather grimy-looking envelope.
"Is that Colonel Treves's house, miss?"
"Yes," said Elaine.
"I've got a letter for there, miss," went on the young man; "it's addressed to Mrs. Treves."
"There is no Mrs. Treves," Elaine answered; then quickly remembering, she smiled the gracious smile that was always so attractive to John. "I'm Mrs. Bernard Treves."