“What has been useless?” asked Sara curiously.
Elisabeth started, and stared at her for a moment in a vacant fashion. Then, all at once, her mind seemed to come back to the present, and simultaneously the familiar watchful look sprang into her eyes. Sara was oddly conscious of being reminded of a sentry who has momentarily slept at his post, and then, awakening suddenly, feverishly resumed his vigilance.
“What was I saying?” Elisabeth brushed her hand distressfully across her forehead.
“You said that it had all been useless,” repeated Sara. “What did you mean?”
Elisabeth paused a moment before replying.
“I meant that all my hopes were useless,” she explained at last. “The hopes I had that some day you would be Tim's wife.”
“Yes, they're quite useless—if that is what you meant,” replied Sara. But there was a perplexed expression in her eyes. She had a feeling that Elisabeth was not being quite frank with her—that that whispered confession of failure signified something other than the simple interpretations vouchsafed.
The thing worried her a little, nagging at the back of her mind with the pertinacity common to any little unexplained incident that has caught one's attention. But, in the course of a few days, the manifold happenings of daily life drove it out of her thoughts, not to recur until many months had passed and other issues paved the way for its resurgence.
Sara remained at Barrow until Tim had volunteered and been accepted, and the settlement of her own immediate plans synchronizing with this last event, it came about that it was only two hours after Tim's departure that she, too, bade farewell to Elisabeth, in order to join up in London with Lady Arronby's party.
Elisabeth stood at the head of the great flight of granite steps at Barrow and waved her hand as the car bore Sara swiftly away, and across the latter's mind flashed the memory of that day, nearly a year ago, when she herself had stood in the same place, waiting to welcome Elisabeth to her new home.