CHAPTER XX
October and November wore themselves away, and the days went by, the one very like the other. Mrs. Otway, after her long hours of work, or of official visiting among the soldiers’ and sailors’ wives and mothers, fell into the way of going out late in the afternoon for a walk by herself. She had grown to dread with a nervous dislike the constant meeting with acquaintances and neighbours, the usual rather futile exchange of remarks about the War, or about the local forms of war and charitable work in which she and they were now all engaged. The stillness and the solitariness of the evening walk soothed her sore and burdened heart.
Often she would walk to Dorycote and back, feeling that the darkened streets—for Witanbury had followed the example of London—and, even more, the country roads beyond, were haunted, in a peaceful sense, by the presence of the man who had so often taken that same way from his house to hers.
It was during one of these evening walks that there came to her a gleam of hope and light, and from a source from which she would never have expected it to come.
She was walking swiftly along on her way home, going across the edge of the Market Square, when she heard herself eagerly hailed with “Is it Mrs. Otway?” She stopped, and answered, not very graciously, “Yes, I’m Mrs. Otway—who is it?”
There came a bubble of laughter, and she knew that this was a very old acquaintance indeed, a Mrs. Riddick, whom she had not seen for some time.
“I don’t wonder you didn’t know me! It’s impossible to see anything by this light. I’ve been having such an adventure! I only came back from Holland yesterday. I went to meet a young niece of mine there—you know, the girl who was in Germany so long.”
“In Germany?” Mrs. Otway turned round eagerly. “Is she with you now? How I should like to see her!”
“I’m afraid you can’t do that. She’s gone to Scotland. I sent her off there last night. Her parents have been nearly frantic about her!”
“Did she see—did she hear anything of the English prisoners while she was in Germany?” Mrs. Otway’s voice sounded strangely pleading in the darkness, and the other felt a little surprised.