The quick tears sprang to Fanny's eyes. "If he loves her," she claimed, "is not that all that matters?"
"He may love again," Mabel reminded her.
Fanny withdrew her hand and stayed quiet, looking down at the ground, blinking back her tears. "You won't help," she said presently. "I see what you mean, it doesn't matter to you what happens to her." She lifted her head defiantly and sprang to her feet. "Well, it doesn't matter, not very much. I believe in love more than you do, it seems, for I do not believe that your brother will love again, and sooner or later he will come back to her." She paused in her declamation and glanced at Mabel. "Is he going to the War?" she asked quickly.
"Yes," Mabel assented; she had stood up too and was drawing on her gloves. "He may go at any moment, as soon as they need him. You think I am awfully hard," she went on; "perhaps I am. Dick means a lot to me; if I find that this is breaking his heart I will tell him, will you believe that? But if he can find happiness elsewhere I shall be glad, that is all."
Fanny huddled herself up in the armchair and did a good cry after she had gone. Joan's thread of happiness seemed more tangled than ever; her efforts to undo the knots had not been very successful. There was only her belief in the strength of Dick's love to fall back on, and love—as Fanny knew from her own experience—is sometimes only a weathercock in disguise, blown this way and that by the winds of fate.
The night post brought a letter from Joan. It was written on black-edged notepaper:
"Dear Fanny,
"Aunt Janet is dead. She died the night after I got here. The nurse says it was the joy of seeing me again that killed her. She was glad to have me back, I read that in her eyes, and it is the one fact that helps me to face things. Death stands between us now, yet we are closer to each other than we have been these last two years. And she loved me all the time, Fanny; sometimes it seems as if love could be very unforgiving. I must stay on down here for the time being; Uncle John needs someone, and he is content that it should be me. The War overhangs and overshadows everything, and it is going to be a hard winter for us all. I suppose he hasn't been back" (Fanny knew who was meant by "he") "to see me. It's stupid of me to ask, but hope is so horribly hard to kill.
"Yours ever,
"Joan."