If the mere sight of familiar handwriting could hurt him, he was resolved to take no further risks with his painfully acquired fortitude.
"You must take it," said Loring. "I don't care what you do with it."
Jack shrugged his shoulders, unbuttoned a pocket of his tunic and slipped the letter inside, as dinner was announced.
"How soon are you chucking up your staff job?" he asked, to kill any further discussion, as they walked out of the library together.
When Jack returned to camp, Loring called on his cousin in Berkeley Square. House and family were in tumult, for, when the Abbey was handed over to the War Office, Lord Crawleigh was driven to spend the autumn in London and he returned to find that it was one thing to urge his younger servants into the army and another to be left without a single able-bodied man to prepare for his coming. His wife was wholly immersed in the management of her hospital; Barbara was training for her certificate; Neave and the two younger boys had been given commissions in the Guards, and daily life was so uncomfortable that he decided to share his discomfort with the nation and to explain the origin and meaning of the war in a series of addresses throughout the country.
"Well, Jack dined with me to-night," Loring began. "I gave him the letter."
"Yes?"
"He didn't want to take it at first, but I told him I'd promised to give it him with my own hand."
Barbara was unnerved by waiting, but she contrived to mask her curiosity with indifference.