It is four months since he went away that day after only that quick, unsatisfying kiss.
"I will take care to have a better good-bye when this second leave is over," I told myself aloud. "Only six days, including the travelling! But I don't suppose they can spare the officers for any longer."
He is certainly very late. It is beginning to look as if he will not come till to-morrow morning. The weather may be bad in the Channel. Anyhow, we shall have to go on with dinner.
I hear a noise of the opening and shutting of doors.
I start to my feet.
This is he! This must be he!
But two or three moments pass and he does not come into the room. And something new and strange and heavy has come into the air of the house; or so, at least, I fancy.
My husband comes along. There is something very odd about his step. And his face looks changed, somehow; sharpened in feature and greyish white.
"How true it is that electric light sometimes makes people look a dreadful colour!" I think as he comes nearer to me.
I ran forward then to meet him.