'People do turn up, you know,' said the doctor musing. 'There have been some wonderful stories.'
'They don't turn up now,' said Bridget positively—'now that the enquiries are done properly.'
'Oh, the Germans are pretty casual—and the hospital returns are far from complete, I hear. However the probabilities, no doubt, are all on the side of death.'
'The War Office are certain of it,' said Bridget with emphasis. 'But it's no good trying to persuade her. I don't try.'
'No, why should you? Poor thing! Well, I'm off to X—— next week,' said the young man. 'I shall keep my eyes open there, in case anything about him should turn up.'
Bridget frowned slightly, and her face flushed.
'Should you know him again, if you saw him?' she asked, abruptly.
'I think so,' said the doctor with slight hesitation, 'I remember him very well at the wedding. Tall and slight?—not handsome exactly, but a good-looking gentlemanly chap? Oh yes, I remember him. But of course, to be alive now, if by some miraculous chance he were alive, and not to have let you know—why he must have had some brain mischief—paralysis—or——'
'He isn't alive!' said Bridget impatiently. 'The War Office have no doubts whatever.'
Howson was rather surprised at the sudden acerbity of her tone. But his momentary impression was immediately lost in the interest roused in him by the emergence from the wood, in front, of Nelly and Cicely. He was a warm-hearted fellow, himself just married, and the approach of the black-veiled figure, which he had last seen in bridal white, touched him like an incident in a play.