Elsie lived at the vicarage. The Elms was too roomy for herself and her baby boy, another Martin Bolland—such were the names given him at the christening font. So it came to pass that she and the vicar, accompanied by a nurse wheeling a perambulator, came to the White House with Martin’s letter. And, heinous as were Mrs. Saumarez’s faults, unforgivable though her crime, they grieved for her, since her memory in the village had been, for the most part, one of a gracious and dignified woman.
Martha wiped her spectacles after reading the letter. The word “hotel” had a comforting sound.
“It must ha’ bin nice for t’ lad te find hisself in a decent bed for a night,” she said.
Then Elsie’s eyes filled with tears.
“I only wish I had known he was there,” she murmured.
“Why, honey?”
“Because, God help me, on one night, at least, I could have fallen asleep with the consciousness that he was safe!”
She averted her face, and her slight, graceful body shook with an uncontrollable emotion. The vicar was so taken aback by this unlooked-for distress on Elsie’s part that his lips quivered and he dared not speak. But John Bolland’s huge hand rested lightly on the young wife’s shoulder.
“Dinnat fret, lass,” he said. “I feel it i’ me bones that Martin will come back te us. England needs such men, the whole wulld needs ’em, an’ the Lord, in His goodness, will see to it that they’re spared. Sometimes, when things are blackest, I liken mesen unto Job; for Job was a farmer an’ bred stock, an’ he was afflicted more than most. An’ then I remember that the Lord blessed the latter end of Job, who died old and full of days; yet I shall die a broken man if Martin is taken. O Lord, my God, in Thee do I put my trust!”