CHAPTER XII
NO QUARTER
DURING the time of Jack's absence, Frank Kent passed through a strange state of mind, one which he did not himself understand. He was both angry and miserable. Resentment against another human being is always folly, since one suffers as much, if not more than the other person.
However, Frank did not answer a single one of Jack's letters, although she managed to write him several times, telling of her safe arrival, of the kindness which had been shown her along the way, and of Captain MacDonnell's recognition of her and his pleasure in finding an old friend near him. Jack also wrote that there was hope of his partial recovery, but that he would probably be unable to fight again. She would be able to tell more on her return home.
Two weeks after the day of her departure, Jack came back to Kent House. She had telegraphed when she reached British soil so that her family knew when to expect her. Frank was not at home when she arrived, so she saw her children and Olive and Frieda first. Then, after dressing for dinner, she went down into the library alone to wait for her husband.
Jack was very tired from the strain of her trip and from the sights she had witnessed in the past fourteen days. She felt as if she were entering a new world in coming back tonight to her home in the peaceful Kentish country. Whatever human beings might be suffering inwardly, there were at least no changes in the tranquillity of the blue hills and the gentle, mist-veiled English landscape.
It had required an effort for Jack to dress, but she did not know in what spirit Frank would meet her and did not wish to have him think she was too much exhausted by the experience which she had wilfully chosen for herself. She feared that Frank was still aggrieved, because of his not having written or sent her a message of any kind, and yet she rather hoped the reunion with her and the news she brought back would soften him.
Partly because of her fatigue, partly because it seemed impossible to wear gay clothes after those days and nights in the hospital, Jack had put on a black satin gown which she had had some time. It was made simply as her evening clothes always were, but the black tulle which covered it was caught with jet ornaments on each shoulder and loosely belted in at the waist, falling in beautiful lines to her feet. At her belt Jack wore a golden rose which the old gardener had brought up to the house as a special offering. The rose had bloomed that morning in one of the greenhouses. Jack's hair was coiled closely about her small head, and she had less color than usual.
She was resting in one of the big library chairs with her eyes closed, when she heard her husband enter the hall, and after making some inquiry, move toward the library door.
At this she rose up at once and ran forward with her arms outstretched to meet him, her face glowing with happiness.