The Captain obeyed with alacrity.

'All the servants left on Monday,' said Pamela. 'We had a charwoman this morning, but she's gone to-night, because there's a new moon.'

'What—raids?'

Pamela nodded as she gave him the soup, with instructions to carry it carefully and put it by the fire. She seemed to be in her gayest mood, and Chicksands' eyes followed her perpetually as she went backwards and forwards on her household tasks. Presently Mrs. Strang appeared, crimson from the fire, bearing the fishpie and vegetables that were to provide the rationed meal.

'To think,' said Mr. Strang, when they were at last at table, 'that there was a time when we were proud of our "little dinners," and that I never made myself unpleasant unless Margaret spent more than five pounds on the food alone. Shall I ever eat a good dinner again?'

He looked wistfully at the bare table.

'Will you ever want to?' said Arthur, quietly.

A momentary silence fell upon the little party. Bernard Strang had lost two brothers in the war, and Chicksands had no sooner spoken than he reproached himself for a tactless brute. But, suddenly, the bells of the Abbey rang: out above their heads, playing with every stroke on the nerves of the listeners. For the voice of England was in them, speaking to that under-consciousness which the war has developed in us all.

'Any news?' said Strang, looking at Arthur.

'No. The Eastern business gets a little worse every day.'

'And the "Offensive"?

'Let them! Our men want nothing better.'

On which the dinner resolved itself into a device for making the Captain talk. The War Office crisis, the men gathered in conclave at Versailles, and that perpetual friction between the politician and the soldier, which every war, big or little, brings to the front, and which will only end when war ends—those were the topics of it, with other talk such as women like to listen to of men about individual men, shrewd, careless, critical, strangely damning here, strangely indulgent there, constant only in one quality—that it is the talk of men and even if one heard it behind a curtain and strained through distance, could never by any chance be mistaken for the talk of women.

At intervals Pamela got up to change the plates and the dishes, quieting with a peremptory gesture the two males, who would spring to their feet. 'Haven't I done parlour-work for six months?—no amateurs, please!' And again, even while he talked on, Arthur's eyes would stray after the young full figure, the white neck and throat, the head with the soft hair folded close around it in wavy bands that followed all its lines—as it might have been the head of one of those terra-cottas that her father had stolen from the Greek tombs in his youth.

But unfortunately, after dinner, in a corner of the dark drawing-room, he must needs try and play the schoolmaster a little, for her good of course; and then all went to pieces.

'I hear you ran away!'

The voice that threw out this sudden challenge was half ironical, half affectionate; the grey eyes under their strong black brows looked at her with amusement.

Pamela flushed at once.

'Aubrey told you, I suppose? What was the good of staying? I couldn't do anything right. I was only making things worse.'

'I can hardly believe that! Couldn't you just have kept Miss Bremerton's work going till she came back?'

'I tried,' said Pamela stiffly, 'and it didn't do.'

'Perhaps she attempts too much. But she seemed to me to be very sensible and human. And—did you hear about the ash trees?'

'No,' said Pamela shortly, her foot nervously beating the ground. 'It doesn't matter. Of course I know she's the cleverest person going. But I can't get on with her—that's all! I'm going to take up nursing—properly. I'm making enquiries about the London Hospital. I want to be a real Army nurse.'

'Will your father consent?'

'Fathers can't stop their daughters from doing things—as they used to do!' said Pamela, with her chin in the air.

She had moved away from him; her soft gaiety had disappeared; he felt her all thorns. Yet some perversity made him try to argue with her. The war—pray the Lord!—might be over before her training as an Army nurse was half done. Meanwhile, her V.A.D. work at Mannering was just what was wanted at the moment from girls of her age—hadn't she seen the appeals for V.A.D.'s? And also, if by anything she did at home—or set others free for doing—she could help Captain Dell and Miss Bremerton to pull the estate round, and get the maximum amount of food out of it, she would be serving the country in the best way possible.

'The last ounce of food, mind!—that's what it depends on,' he said, smiling at her, 'which can stick it longest—they or we. You belong to the land—ought you desert it?'

Pamela sat unmoved. She knew nothing about the land. Her father had the new agent—and Miss Bremerton.

'Your sister there,' said Chicksands, nodding towards the front drawing-room, where Strang and his wife were sitting Darby and Joan over the fire discussing rations and food prices, 'thinks Miss Bremerton already overdone.'

'I never saw the least sign of it!'

'But think!—your father never slackens his Greek work—and there is all the rest.'

'I suppose if it's too much for her she'll give it up,' said Pamela in her most obstinate voice.

But even then a normally tactful man still held on.

Never was anything more maladroit. It was the stupidity of a clever fellow, deluding himself with the notion that having refused the role of lover, he could at least play that of guardian and adviser; whose conscience, moreover, was so absolutely clear on the subject of Elizabeth Bremerton that he did not even begin to suspect what was rankling In the girl's morbid sense.

The relation between them accordingly went from bad to worse; and when Pamela rose and sharply put an end to their private conversation, the evening would have practically ended in a quarrel but for some final saving instinct on Chicksands' part, which made him mention Desmond as he bade her good-night.

'I could tell you where he is,' he said gravely. 'Only I mustn't. I had a note from him yesterday—the dear old boy! He wrote in the highest spirits. His colonel was "ripping," and his men, of course, the best in the whole battery.'

'If you get any news—ever—before we do,' said Pamela, suddenly choking, 'you'll tell us at once?'

'Trust me. He's never out of my mind.'

On that her good-night was less cold than it would have been five minutes before. But he walked home through the moonlit streets both puzzled and distressed—till he reached his club in Pall Mall, where the news coming through on the tape quickly drove everything out of his soldier's mind but the war.

* * * * *

Mrs. Gaddesden was sitting as usual in the hall at Mannering. A mild February was nearly out. It would be the first of March on the morrow.

Every moment she expected to hear the Fallerton taxi draw up at the front door—bringing Elizabeth Bremerton back to Mannering. She had been away more than a month. Mrs. Gaddesden went back in thought to the morning when it had been announced to the Squire by his pale and anxious secretary that she had had bad news of her invalid mother, and must go home at once. The Squire—his daughter could not deny it—had behaved abominably. But of all of his fume and fret, his unreasonable complaints and selfish attempts to make her fix the very day and hour of her return, Elizabeth had taken no notice. Go she would, at once; and she would make no promises as to the exact date of her return. But on the morning before she went she had worked superhumanly to put things in order, whether for her typist, or Captain Dell, or Pamela, who must at least take over the housekeeping. The relations between her and Miss Bremerton that morning had struck Mrs. Gaddesden as odd—certainly not cordial. But there was nothing to complain of in Pamela's conduct. She would do her best, she said, and sat listening while Elizabeth gave her instructions about food cards, and servants, and the rest.

Then, when the taxi had driven away with the Dictator, what temper on the Squire's part! Mrs. Gaddesden had very nearly gone home to London—but for the fact of raids, and the fact that two of her most necessary servants had joined the W.A.A.C.'s. Pamela, on the other hand, had gone singing about the house. And really the child had done her best. But how could any one expect her to manage her father and the house, especially on the scraps of time left her by her V.A.D. work? The Squire had been like a fractious child over the compulsory rations. Nobody was less of a glutton—he pecked like a bird; but the proper food to peck at must be always there, or his temper was unbearable. Pamela made various blunders; the household knew hunger for the first time; and the servants began to give warning. Captain Dell could do nothing with his employer, and the timber business was hung up.

Then came Pamela's outbreak after a tirade from the Squire bitterly contrasting his lost secretary's performances, in every particular, with those of his daughter. The child had disappeared, and a message from the station was all that remained of her. Well, who could wonder? Mrs. Gaddesden reflected, with some complacency, that even she had spoken her mind to her father that night, conveniently forgetting some annoying retorts of his about herself, and the custom she had developed of sitting for hours over the fire pretending to knit, but really doing nothing. After her enormous exertions in the cause of the war—she was accustomed to say—of the year before, she was in need of a rest. She was certainly taking it. Since Pamela left, indeed, she had been obliged to do the housekeeping, and considered it very hard work. She had never yet been able to calculate the food coupons correctly.

So she, like all the rest, was looking eagerly for Elizabeth.

Yes!—that was the cracked horn of the village taxi. Mrs. Gaddesden poked the fire with energy and rang for Forest. But his quick ears had heard the signal before hers, and he was already hurrying through the hall to the front door.

And there was the library door opening, so her father too had been on the watch. Voices in the vestibule, and as the outer door of the hall opened, the Squire appeared at the further end. Alice Gaddesden had an odd feeling that something important—decisive—was going to happen.

Yet nothing could have been more unassuming than Elizabeth's entry. It was evident, indeed, that Forest was overjoyed to see her. He shouldered her modest boxes and bags with a will, and a housemaid, all smiles, came running half way downstairs to take some of his burden from him. Elizabeth followed the butler and took Mrs. Gaddesden's hand.

'My train was late. I hope you've not waited tea?'

'Why, of course we have,' said the Squire's voice. 'Forest!—tea at once.'

Elizabeth, not having perceived his approach in the dimness of the February twilight, turned with a start to greet the Squire. He looked, to her eyes, lankier and thinner and queerer than ever. But it was a distinguished queerness. Elizabeth had forgotten that the brow and eyes were so fine, and the hair so glistening white. The large nose and small captious chin passed unnoticed. She was astonished at her own throb of pleasure in seeing her employer again.

His pleasure was boisterously evident, though presently he showed it in his usual way by attacking her. But first Mrs. Gaddesden made the proper enquiries after Elizabeth's invalid mother.

Elizabeth, looking extremely tired as she sat by the fire, in the chair which the Squire—most unwonted attention!—had drawn up for her, said that her mother was better, and volunteered nothing further. The Squire, meanwhile, had observed her looks, and was chafing inwardly against invalid relations who made unjust claims upon their kith and kin and monstrously insisted on being nursed by them. But he had the sense to hold his tongue, and even to profess a decent sympathy.

Then, without any further preamble, he plunged into his own affairs.

'Everything's gone to rack and ruin since you left,' he said vehemently. 'Of course you knew it would!'

Elizabeth's eyebrows lifted. The look, half tolerant, half amused, with which she greeted sallies of this kind was one of her attractions for the Squire.

'What's Captain Dell been doing?' she inquired.

'Marking time!' was the testy reply. 'He's been no good by himself—I knew he wouldn't be—no more use than old Hull.'

Elizabeth's expression showed her sceptical.

'And the timber?'

'Just where you left it. The rascally fellows want all sorts of conditions. You may accept them if you like—I won't. But I told them we'd meet them in the woods to-morrow—you, and Dell and I. And Chicksands, who likes poking his nose into everything, is coming too.'

'Sir Henry?' asked Elizabeth in astonishment.

'Well, I thought you might like the old boy's opinion, so I rang him up on that horrid thing you've put into the office. I don't care about his opinion in the least!'

A treat arranged for her return! Elizabeth felt as if she were being offered Sir Henry's head on a charger.

'That will be a great help!' she said with rather artificial enthusiasm, at which the Squire only shrugged his shoulders. 'Has Sir Henry been over here—'

'While you've been away? Nothing of the sort. He's not crossed the threshold since I turned him out six months ago. But he's coming all the same—as mild as milk.'

'Very good of him!' said Elizabeth with spirit.

'That's as you choose to look at it. And as to everything else—'

'The catalogue?'

'Gone to the crows!' said the Squire gloomily. 'Levasseur took some references to look out last week, and made twenty mistakes in as many lines. He's off!'

Elizabeth removed her hat and pressed her hands to her eyes, half laughing, half aghast. Never had anything been more welcome to the Squire than the sheen of her hair in the semi-darkness. Mrs. Gaddesden had once annoyed him by calling it red.

'And the farms?'

'Oh, that I leave you to find out. I shovelled all the letters on to your table, just as Pamela left them.'

'Pamela!' said Elizabeth, looking up. 'But where is she?'

The Squire held his peace. Mrs. Gaddesden drily observed that she was staying with Mrs. Strang in town. A bright colour spread in Elizabeth's cheeks and she fell silent, staring into the fire.

'Hadn't you better take your things off?' said Mrs. Gaddesden.

Elizabeth rose. As she passed the Squire, he said gruffly:

'Of course you're not ready for any Greek before dinner?'

She smiled. 'But of course I am. I'll be down directly.'

In a few more minutes she was standing alone in her room. The housemaid, of her own accord, had lit a fire, and had gathered some snowdrops for the dressing table. Elizabeth's bags had been already unpacked, and all her small possessions had been arranged just as she liked them.

'They spoil me,' she thought, half pleased, half shrinking. 'But why am I here? Why have I come back? And what do I mean to do?'



CHAPTER XIII

These questions—'Why did I come back?—What am I going to do?' were still ringing through Elizabeth's mind when, on the evening of her return, she entered the library to find the Squire eagerly waiting for her.

But the spectacle presented by the room quickly drove out other matters. She stood aghast at the disorder which three weeks of the Squire's management had brought about. Books on the floor and piled on the chairs—a dusty confusion of papers everywhere—drawers open and untidy—her reign of law seemed to have been wiped out.

'Oh, what a dreadful muddle!'

The Squire looked about him—abashed.

'Yes, it's awful—it's all that fellow Levasseur. I ought to have turned him out sooner. He's the most helpless, incompetent idiot. But it won't take you very long to get straight? I'll do anything you tell me.'

He watched her face appealingly, like a boy in a scrape. Elizabeth shook her head.

'It'll take me a full day. But never mind; we need not begin to-night.'

'No, we won't begin to-night!' said the Squire emphatically. 'There!—I've found a chair for you. Is that fire as you like it?'

What astonishing amiability! The attack of nerves which had assailed Elizabeth upstairs began to disappear. She took the chair the Squire offered her, cleared a small table, and produced from the despatch-box she had brought into the room with her a writing-block and a fountain-pen.

'Do you want to dictate anything?'

'Not at all!' said the Squire. 'I've got nothing ready for dictating. The work I have done during your absence I shall probably tear up.'

'But I thought—'

'Well, I daresay—but can't a man change his mind? Greek be hanged!' thundered the impatient voice. 'I want some conversation with you—if you will allow me?'

The last words slipped awkwardly into another note. It was as though a man should exchange the trombone for the flute. Elizabeth held her peace; but her pulse was beginning to quicken.

'The fact is,' said the Squire, 'I have been thinking over a good many things—in the last hour.' Then he turned upon her abruptly. 'What was that you were saying to Alice in the hall just now, about moving your mother into better rooms?'

Elizabeth's parted lips showed her surprise.

'We do want better rooms for her,' she said hesitatingly, after a moment. 'My sister Joan, who is at home just now, is looking out. But they are not easy to find.'

'Don't look out!' said the Squire impetuously. 'I have a better plan to propose to you. In these horrible days people must co-operate and combine. I know many instances of families sharing a house—and servants. Beastly, I admit, in the case of a small house. One runs up against people—and then one hates them. I do! But in the case of a large house it is different. Now, what do you say to this? Bring your mother here!'

'Bring—my mother—here?' repeated Elizabeth stupidly. 'I don't understand.'

'It's very simple.' The Squire stood over her, his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, his eyes all vivacity. 'This is a big house—an old barn, if you like, but big enough. Your mother might have the whole of the east wing—which looks south—if she pleased; and neither she nor I need ever come in each other's way, any more than people who have flats in the same building. I heard you say she had a nurse. Well, there would be the nurse—and another servant perhaps. And the housekeeping could be in common. Now do consider it. Be reasonable! Don't mock at it, because it isn't your own plan,' said the Squire severely, perceiving the smile, which she could not repress, spreading over Elizabeth's countenance.

'It's awfully good of you!' she began warmly—'but—'

'But what?'

Then Elizabeth's smile vanished, and instead he saw a dimness in the clear blue eyes.

'My poor little mother is too ill—much too ill—' she said in a low voice. 'She may live a good while yet; but her mind is no longer clear.'

The Squire was checked. This possible aspect of the case had not occurred to him. But he was not to be defeated.

'If you can move her from one house to another, surely you could move her here—in an invalid motor? It would only take an hour and a half.'

Elizabeth shook her head quietly, but decidedly.

'Thank you, but I am afraid it is impossible. She couldn't take the journey, and—no, indeed, it is out of the question!'

'Will you ask your doctor?' said the Squire obstinately.

'I know what he would say. Please don't think of it, Mr. Mannering. It's very, very good of you.'

'It's not the least good,' said the Squire roughly. 'It's sheer, naked self-interest. If you're not at ease about your mother, you'll be throwing up your work here again some day, for good, and that'll be death and damnation!'

He turned frowning away, and threw himself into a chair by the fire.

So the murder was out. Elizabeth must needs laugh. But this clumsy way of showing her that she was indispensable not only touched her feeling, but roused up the swarm of perplexities which had buzzed around her ever since her summons to her mother's bedside on the morning after her scene with Pamela. And again she asked herself, 'Why did I come back? And what am I going to do?'

She looked in doubt at the fuming gentleman by the fire, and suddenly conscience bade her be frank.

'I would like to stay here, Mr. Mannering, and go on with my work. I have told you so before. I will stay—as long as I can. But I mustn't burn my boats. I mustn't stay indefinitely. I have come to see that would not be fair—'

'To whom?' cried the Squire, raising himself—'to whom?'

'To Pamela,' said Elizabeth firmly.

'Pamela!' The Squire leapt from his seat. 'What on earth has Pamela got to do with it!'

'A very great deal. She is the natural head of your house, and it would be very difficult for me to go on living here—after—perhaps—I have just put a few things straight for you, and catalogued the pots—without getting in her way, and infringing her rights!'

Elizabeth was sitting very erect and bright-eyed. It seemed to her that some subliminal self for which she was hardly responsible had suddenly got the better of a hair-splitting casuistical self, which had lately been in command of her, and that the subliminal self had spoken words of truth and soberness.

But instead of storming, the Squire laughed contemptuously.

'Pamela's rights? Well, I'll discuss them when she remembers her duties! I remonstrated with her one morning when the servants were all giving warning—and there was nothing to eat—and she had made a hideous mess of some instructions of mine about a letter to the County Council—and I pointed out to her that none of these things would have happened if you had been here.'

'Oh, poor Pamela!' exclaimed Elizabeth—'but still more, poor me!'

'"Poor me"?' said the Squire. 'What does that mean?'

'You see, I have a weakness for being liked!' said Elizabeth after a moment. 'And how can Pamela like anybody that is being thrown at her head like that?' She looked at her companion reproachfully. But the Squire was not to be put down.

'Besides,' he continued, without noticing her interruption, 'Pamela writes to me this morning that she wants my consent to her training as an Army nurse.'

'Oh no,' cried Elizabeth—'not yet. She is too young!'

Her face showed her distress. So she was really driving this poor child, whom she would so easily have loved had it been allowed her, out of her home! No doubt Pamela had seized on the pretext of her 'row' with her father to carry out her threat to Elizabeth of 'running away,' and before Elizabeth's return to Mannering, so that neither the Squire nor any one else should guess at the real reason. But how could Elizabeth acquiesce?

Yet if she revealed the story of Pamela's attack upon her to the Squire, what would happen? Only a widening of the breach between him and his daughter. Elizabeth, of course, might depart, but Pamela would be none the more likely to return to face her father's wrath. And again for the hundredth time Elizabeth said to herself, in mingled pain and exasperation—'What did she mean?—and what have I ever done that she should behave so?'

Then she raised her eyes. Something impelled her—as it were a strong telepathic influence. The Squire was gazing at her. His expression was extraordinarily animated. It seemed to her that words were already on his lips, and that at all costs she must stop them there.

But fortune favoured her. There was a knock at the library door. The Squire irritably said, 'Come in!' and Forest announced, 'Captain Dell.' The Squire, with some muttered remark, walked across to his own table.

The agent entered with a beaming countenance. All that he knew was that the only competent person in a rather crazy household had returned to it, and that business was now likely to go forward. He had brought some important letters, and he laid them nominally before his employer, but really before Elizabeth. He and she talked; the Squire smoked and listened, morosely aloof. Yet by the end of the agent's visit a grudging but definite consent had been given to the great timber deal; and Elizabeth hurried off as Captain Dell departed—thankful for the distant sound of the first bell for dinner.

* * * * *

Sitting up in bed that night, with her hands behind her head, while a westerly wind blew about the house, Elizabeth again did her best to examine both her conscience and her situation.

The summons which had taken her home had been a peremptory one. Her mother, who had been ill for a good many months, had suddenly suffered some brain injury, which had reduced her to a childish helplessness. She did not recognize Elizabeth, and though she was very soon out of physical danger, the mental disaster remained. A good nurse was now more to her than the daughter to whom she had been devoted. A good nurse was in charge, and Elizabeth had persuaded an elderly cousin, living on a small annuity, to come and share her mother's rooms. Now what was more necessary than ever was—money! Elizabeth's salary was indispensable.

Was she to allow fine feelings about Pamela to drive her out of her post and her earnings—to the jeopardy not only of her mother's comfort, but of the good—the national—work open to her at Mannering?

But there was a much more agitating question behind. She had only trifled with it till now. But on the night of her return it pressed. And as a reasonable woman, thirty years of age, she proceeded to look it in the face.

When Captain Dell so opportunely—or inconveniently—knocked at the library door, Mr. Mannering was on the point of asking his secretary to marry him. Of that Elizabeth was sure.

She had just escaped, but the siege would be renewed. How was she going to meet it?

Why shouldn't she marry the Squire? She was poor, but she had qualities much more valuable to the Squire than money. She could rescue him from debt, put his estate on a paying footing, restore Mannering, rebuild the village, and all the time keep him happy by her sympathy with and understanding of his classical studies and hobbies.

And thereby she would be doing not only a private but a public service. The Mannering estate and its owner had been an offence to the patriotism of a whole neighbourhood. Elizabeth could and would put an end to that. She had already done much to modify it. In her Greek scholarship, and her ready wits, she possessed all the spells that were wanted for the taming of the Squire.

As to the Squire himself? She examined the matter dispassionately. He was fifty-two—sound in wind and limb—a gentleman in spite of all his oddities and tempers—and one of the best Greek scholars of his day. She could make her own terms. 'I would take his name—give him my time, my brains, my friendship—in time, no doubt, my affection.' He would not ask for more. The modern woman, no longer young, an intellectual, with a man's work to do, can make of marriage what she pleases. The possibilities of the relations between men and women in the future are many, and the psychology of them unexplored. Elizabeth was beginning to think her own case out, when, suddenly, she felt the tears running over her cheeks.

She was back in past days. Mannering had vanished. Oh—for love!—for youth!—for the broken faith and the wounded trust!—for the first fresh wine of life that, once dashed from the lips, the gods offer no more! She found herself sobbing helplessly, not for her actual lost lover, who had passed out of her life, but for those beautiful ghosts at whose skirts she seemed to be clutching—youth itself, love itself.

Had she done with them for good and all? That was what marrying the Squire meant.

A business marriage—on her side, for an income, a home, a career; on his, for a companion, a secretary, an agent. Well, she said to herself as she calmed down, that she could face; but supposing, after all, that the Squire was putting more into the scales than she? A sudden fear grew strong in her—fear lest this man should have more heart, more romance in him than she had imagined possible—that while she was thinking of a business partnership, the Squire was expecting, was about to offer, something quite different.

The thought scared and repelled her. If that were indeed the case, she would bid Mannering a long and final farewell.

But no!—she reassured herself; she recalled the Squire's passionate absorption in his archaeological pursuits; how his dependence upon her, his gratitude to her, his surprising fits of docility, were all due to the fact that she helped him to pursue them—that his mind sharpened itself against hers—that her hand and brain were the slaves of his restless intelligence.

That was all—that must, that should be all. She thought vigorously of the intellectual comradeships of history—beginning with Michael Angelo and Vittoria Colonna. They were not certainly quite on all fours with her own situation—but give modern life and the new woman time!

Suppose, then, these anxieties set at rest, and that immediately, within twenty-four hours, or a week, the Squire were to ask her to marry him and were ready to understand the matter as she did—what else stood in the way?

Then, slowly, in the darkness of the room, there rose before her the young figures of the twins, with their arms round each other's necks, as she had often seen them—Desmond and Pamela. And they looked at her with hostile eyes!

'Cuckoo!—intriguer!—we don't want you!—we won't accept you!'

But after all, as Elizabeth reflected not without a natural exasperation, she was not—consciously—a cuckoo; she was not an intriguer; there was nothing of the Becky Sharp about her at all; it would have been so very much simpler if there had been! To swallow the Squire and Mannering at one gulp, to turn out the twins, to put Mrs. Gaddesden—who, as Elizabeth had already discovered, was constantly making rather greedy demands upon her father—on rations according to her behaviour, to bring in her own poor mother and all her needy relations—to reign supreme, in fact, over Mannering and the county—nothing would be easier.

The only thing that stood in the way was that the Squire's secretary happened to be a nice woman—and not an adventuress. Elizabeth's sense of humour showed her the kind of lurid drama that Pamela no doubt was concocting about her—perhaps with the help of Beryl—the two little innocents! Elizabeth recalled the intriguing French 'companion' in War and Peace who inveigles the old Squire. And as for the mean and mercenary stepmothers of fiction, they can be collected by the score. That, no doubt, was how Pamela thought of her. So that, after her involuntary tears, Elizabeth ended in a laughter that was half angry, half affectionate.

Poor children! She was not going to turn them out of their home. She had written to Pamela during her absence with her mother, asking again for an explanation of the wild and whirling things that Pamela had said to her that night in the hall, and in return not a single frank or penitent word!—only a few perfunctory enquiries after Mrs. Bremerton, and half a page about an air-raid. It left Elizabeth sorer and more puzzled than before.

Desmond too! She had written to him also from London a long chat about all the things he cared about at Mannering—the animals, Pamela's pony, the old keeper, the few pheasants still left in the woods, and what Perley said of the promise of a fair partridge season. And the boy had replied immediately. Desmond's Eton manners were rarely caught napping; but the polite little note—stiff and frosty—might have been written to a complete stranger.

What was in their minds? How could she put it right? Well, anyhow, Desmond could not at that moment be wasting time or thought on home worries, or her own supposed misdemeanours. Where was the radiant boy now? In some artillery camp, she supposed, behind the lines, waiting for his ordeal of blood and fire. Waiting with the whole Army—the whole Empire—for that leap of the German monster which must be met and parried and struck down before England could breathe again. And as she thought of him, her woman's soul, winged by its passion of patriotism, seemed to pass out into the night across the sea, till it stood beside the English hosts.

'Forces and Powers of the Universe, be with them!—strengthen the strong, uphold the weak, comfort the dying!—for in them lies the hope of the world.'

Her life hung on the prayer. The irresponsive quiet of the night over the Mannering woods and park, with nothing but the wind for voice, seemed to her unbearable. And it only answered to the apathy within doors. Why, the Squire had scarcely mentioned the war since her return! Neither he nor Mrs. Gaddesden had asked her for an evening paper, though there had been a bad London raid the night before. She had seen a letter 'on active service,' and addressed, she thought, in Desmond's handwriting, lying on the library table; and it seemed to her there was a French ordnance map near it. But in answer to her enquiries about the boy, the Squire had vouchsafed only a few irritable words, 'Well—he's not killed yet! The devil's business over there seems to be working up to a greater hell than ever!' Nothing more.

Well, she would see to that! Mannering should feel the war, if she were to live in it. She straightened her shoulders, her will stiffening to its task.

Yes, and while that dear boy was out there, in that grim fighting line, no action of hers, if she could help it, should cause him a moment's anger or trouble. Her resolution was taken. If the Squire did mean to ask her to marry him she would try and stop him in mid-career. If she couldn't stop him, well, then, she would give him his choice—either to keep her, as secretary and friend, and hold his peace, or to lose her. She felt certain of her power to contain the Squire's 'offensive,' if it were really threatened.

But, on the other hand, she was not going to give up her post because the twins had taken some unjust prejudice against her! Nothing of the kind. She had those ash trees to look after! She was tolerably sure that a thorough search would comb out a good many more for the Air Board from the Squire's woods than had yet been discovered. The Fallerton hospital wanted more accommodation. There was an empty house belonging to the Squire, which she had already begun, before her absence, with his grudging permission, to get ready for the purpose. That had to be finished. The war workroom in the village, which she had started, must have another Superintendent, the first having turned out a useless chatterbox. Elizabeth had her successor already in mind. There were three or four applications waiting for the two other neglected farms. Captain Dell was hurrying on the repairs; but there was more money wanted—she must get it out of the Squire. Then as to labour—German prisoners?—or women?

Her brain began to teem with a score of projects. But after lying awake another hour, she pulled herself up. 'This won't do. I must have six hours' sleep.' And she resolutely set herself to repeat one of the nursery poems of her childhood, till, wooed by its silly monotony, sleep came.

It was a bright March day in the Mannering woods, where the Squire, Elizabeth, and Captain Dell were hanging about waiting for Sir Henry Chicksands. The astonishing warmth and sunshine of the month had brought out a shimmer of spring everywhere, reddened the great heads of the oaks, and set the sycamore buds shining like jewels in the pale blue. There was an endless chatter and whirr of wood-pigeons in the high tree-tops, and underfoot the anemones and violets were busy pushing their gentle way through the dead leaves of autumn. The Squire's beechwoods were famous in the neighbourhood, and he was still proud of them; though for many years past they had gone unnoticed to decay, and were in some places badly diseased.

To Elizabeth, in an artistic mood—the mood which took her in town to see exhibitions of Brabazon or Steer—the woods were fairyland. The high slender oak of the middle wood, the spreading oak that lived on its borders, the tall columnar beech feathering into the sky, its grey stem shining as though by some magic property in the beautiful forest twilight—the gleams and the shadows, the sounds and scents of the woodland world—she could talk or write about these things as poetically, and as sincerely, as any other educated person when put to it; but on this occasion, it has to be said frankly, she was thinking of nothing but aeroplanes and artillery waggons. And she had by now developed a kind of flair in the woods, which was the astonishment of Captain Dell, himself no mean forester. As far as ash was concerned, she was a hunter on the trail. She could distinguish an ash tree yards ahead through a mixed or tangled wood, and track it unerringly. The thousand ash that she, and the old park-keepers set on by her, had already found for the Government, were nothing to what she meant to find. The Squire's woods, some of which she had not yet explored at all, were as mines to her in which she dug for treasure—for the timber that might save her country.

Captain Dell delighted in her. He had already taught her a great deal, and was now drilling her in the skilled arts of measurement and valuation. The Squire, in stupefaction, watched her at work with pole and tape, measuring, noting, comparing. Had it been any one else he would have been bored and contemptuous. But the novelty of the thing and the curious fact that the lady who looked up his Greek references was also the lady who was measuring the trees, kept him a half-unwilling but still fascinated spectator of her proceedings.

In the midst of them Sir Henry Chicksands appeared, making his way through the thick undergrowth. Elizabeth threw a hasty look at the Squire. This was the first time the two neighbours had met since the quarrel. The Squire had actually written first—and to please her. Very touching, and very embarrassing! She hoped for the best.

Sir Henry Chicksands advanced as though nothing had happened—solid, ruddy, benevolent, and well dressed, as usual.

He bowed with marked deference to Elizabeth, and then offered a hand to the Squire, which was limply accepted.

'Well, Mannering, very glad to see you. Like every one else, you seem to be selling your woods.'

'Under threat of being shot if I don't!' said the Squire grimly.

'What? They're commandeered?'

'The Government spies are all about. I preferred to anticipate them. Well, what about your ploughed-up grass-lands, Chicksands? I hear they are full of wire-worms, and the crops a very poor show.'

'Ah, it was an enemy said that,' laughed Sir Henry, submitting with a good grace to some more remarks of the same kind, and escaping from them as soon as he could.

'I heard of your haul of ash,' he said. 'A man in the Air Board told me. Magnificent!'

'You may thank her.' The Squire indicated his secretary. 'I knew nothing about it.'

'And you're still hunting?' Sir Henry turned to Elizabeth. 'May I join your walk if you're going through the woods?' Captain Dell was introduced. 'You want my opinion on your deal? Well, I'm an old forester, and I'll give it you with pleasure. I used to shoot here, year after year, with the Squire, in our young days—isn't that so, Mannering? I know this bit of country by heart, and I think I could help you to bag a few more ash.'

Elizabeth's blue eyes appealed with all proper deference to the Squire.

'Won't you come?'

He shook his head.

'I'm tired of timber. Do what you like. I'll sit here and read till you come back.'

Sir Henry's shrug was perceptible, but he held his peace, and the three walked away. The Squire, finding a seat on a fallen tree, took a book out of his pocket and pretended to read it.

'Nobody can be as important as Chicksands looks!' he said to himself angrily. Even the smiling manner which ignored their six months' quarrel had annoyed him hugely. It was a piece of condescension—an impertinence. Oh, of course Chicksands was the popular man, the greatest power in the county, looked up to, and listened to by everybody. The Squire knew very well that he himself was ostracized, even hated; that there had been general chuckling in the neighbourhood over his rough handling by the County Committee, and that it would please a good many people to see all his woods commandeered and 'cut clean.'

Six months before, his inborn pugnacity would only have amused itself with the situation. He was a rebel and a litigant by nature. Smooth waters had never attracted him.

Yet now—though he would never have admitted it—he was often conscious of a flagging will and a depressed spirit. The loneliness of his life, due entirely to himself, had, during Elizabeth Bremerton's absence, begun sharply to find him out. He had no true fatherly relation with any of his children. Desmond loved him—why, he didn't know. He didn't believe any of the others cared anything at all about him. Why should they?

The Squire's eyes followed the three distant walkers, Elizabeth, graceful and vigorous, between the other two. And the conviction gripped him that all the pleasure, the liveableness of life—such as still remained possible—depended for him on that central figure. He looked back on his existence before her arrival at Mannering, and on what it had been since. Why, she had transformed it!

How could he cage and keep her?—the clever, gracious creature! For the first time in his life he was desperately, tremulously humble. He placed no dependence at all on his name or his possessions. Elizabeth was not to be bought.

But management—power—for the things she believed in—they might tempt her. He would give them to her with both hands, if only she would settle down beside him, take a freehold of that chair and table in the library, for life!

He looked back gloomily to his clumsy proposal about her mother, and to her remarks about Pamela. It would be indeed intolerable if his children got in his way! The very notion put him in a fever.

If that tiresome fellow, Dell, had not interrupted them the night before, what would have happened?

He had all the consciousness of a man still in the prime of life, in spite of his white hair; for he had married at twenty-one, and had never—since they grew up—seemed to himself very much older than his elder children. He had but a very dim memory of his wife. Sometimes he felt as if, notwithstanding the heat of boyish passion which had led him to marry her, he had never really known her. There were moments when he had an uncomfortable suspicion that for some years before her death she had silently but irrevocably passed judgment upon him, and had withdrawn her inner life from him. Friends of hers had written to him after her death of beautiful traits and qualities in her of which he himself had known nothing. In any case they were not traits and qualities which appealed in the long run to a man of his pursuits and temperament. He was told that Pamela had inherited some of them.

A light rustling sound in the wood. He looked up to see Elizabeth coming back towards him unaccompanied. Captain Dell and Sir Henry seemed to have left her.

A thrill of excitement ran through him. They were alone in the depths of the spring woodland. What better opportunity would he ever have?



CHAPTER XIV

Elizabeth was coming back in that flushed mood when an able man or woman who begins to feel the tide of success or power rising beneath them also begins to remind himself or herself of all the old commonplaces about Fate or Chance. Elizabeth's Greek reading had steeped her in them. 'Count no man happy till his death'; 'Count nothing finished till the end'; tags of this kind were running through her mind, while she smiled a little over the compliments that Sir Henry had been paying her.

He could not express, he said, the relief with which he had heard of her return to Mannering. 'Don't, please, go away again!' Everybody in the county who was at all responsible for its war-work felt the same. Her example, during the winter, had been invaluable, and the skill with which she had brought the Squire into line, and set the Squire's neglected estate on the road to food-production, had been—in Sir Henry's view—nothing short of a miracle.

'Yes, a miracle, my dear lady!' repeated Sir Henry warmly. 'I know the prickliness of our good friend there! I speak to you confidentially, because I realize that you could not possibly have done what you have done unless you had won the Squire's confidence—his complete confidence. Well, that's an achievement, I can tell you—as bad as storming a redoubt. Go on—don't let go! What you are doing here—the kind of work you are doing—is of national importance. God only knows what lies before us in the next few months!'

And therewith a sudden sobering of the ruddy countenance and self-important manner. For a few seconds, from his mind and Elizabeth's there vanished all consciousness of the English woodland scene, and they were looking over a flayed and ravaged country where millions of men stood ranged for battle.

Sir Henry sighed.

'Thank God, Arthur is still at home—doing some splendid work, they tell me, at the War Office, but, of course, pining to be off to France again. I hear from him that Desmond is somewhere near Armentieres. Well, good-bye—I tied my horse to the gate, and must get home. Stick to it! Say good-bye to the Squire for me—I shall be over again before long. If there is anything I can do for you—count upon me. But we count upon you!'

Astonishing effusion!—from an elderly gentleman who, at the beginning of things, had regarded her as elderly gentlemen of great local position do regard young women secretaries who are earning their own living. Sir Henry's tone was now the tone of one potentate to another; and, as we have seen, it caused Elizabeth to tame her soul with Greek, as she walked back through the wood to rejoin the Squire.

When she perceived him waiting for her, she wished with some fervour that she were not alone. She had tried to keep Captain Dell with her, but he had pleaded an urgent engagement at a village near the farther end of the wood. And then Sir Henry had deserted her. It was annoying—and unforeseen.

The Squire observed her as she came up—the light, springing step, the bunch of primroses in her belt. He closed the book, of which he had not in truth read a word.

'You have been a long time?'

'But I assure you it was well worth while!' She paused in front of him, a little out of breath, leaning on her measuring-pole. 'We found ten or twelve more ash—some exactly of the size they want.'

'Who are "they"?'

'The Air Board,' said Elizabeth, smiling.

'The fellows that wrote me that letter? I didn't want their thanks.'

Elizabeth took no notice. She resumed—

'And Sir Henry went into the figures of that contract with Captain Dell. He thinks the Captain has done very well, and that the prices are very fair—very good, in fact.'

'All the same, I don't mean to accept their blessed contract.'

'Oh, but I thought it was settled!' cried Elizabeth in distress. She sat down on a dry stump a little way off, and the Squire actually enjoyed the sight of her discomfiture.

'Why on earth should I allow these people, not only to make a hideous mess of my woods, and murder my trees, but to take three years—three years—over the disgusting business, before they get it all done and clear up the mess? One year is the utmost I will allow.'

Elizabeth looked consternation.

'But think of the labour difficulties,' she pleaded. 'The contractor can't get the men. Of course, he wants to cut and move the trees as soon as he can, so as to get his money back.'

'That's his affair,' said the Squire obstinately. 'I want to get my woods in a decent state again, so that I mayn't be for ever reminded that I sold them—betrayed them—for filthy lucre.'

'No!' said Elizabeth firmly, her colour rising, 'for the Army!'

The Squire shrugged his shoulders.

'So they say. Meanwhile the timber-man makes an unholy profit.'

There was silence for a moment, then Elizabeth said,

'Do you really mean to stick to that condition?'

'I should be glad if Dell would see to it.'

'Then'—said Elizabeth slowly—'the contract will drop. I understand they cannot possibly pledge themselves to removal within the time named.'

'Well, there are other timber-merchants.'

'The difficulty of labour is the same for everybody. And Captain Dell thinks no one else would give the price—certainly not the Government. You will remember that some of the money was to be spent immediately.' Her tone was cold and restrained, but he thought it trembled a little.

'I know,' he interrupted, 'on cottages and the hospital. Money oozes away at every pore! I shall be a bare beggar after the war. Have you the contract there? Or did Dell take it?'

Elizabeth drew a roll of blue paper out of her pocket. Her indignation made her speechless. All the endless negotiations, Captain Dell's work, her work—to go for nothing! What was the use of trying to serve—to work with such a man?

The Squire took the roll from her and searched his pockets for a fountain-pen.

'I will make some notes on it now for Dell's guidance. I might forget it to-night.'

Elizabeth said nothing. He turned away, spread out the papers on the smooth trunk of the fallen tree, and began to write.

Elizabeth sat very erect, her mouth proudly set, her eyes wandering into the distance of the wood. What was she to do? The affront to herself was gross—for the Squire had definitely promised her the night before that the bargain should go through. And she felt hotly for the hard-working agent. Should she put up with it? Her meditations of the night recurred to her—and she seemed to herself a very foolish woman!

'There you are!' said the Squire, as he handed the roll back to her.

She looked at it unwillingly. Then her face changed. She stooped over the contract. Below the signature of the firm of timber-merchants stood large and full that of 'Edmund Mannering.'

The Squire smiled.

'Now are you satisfied?'

She returned the contract to its envelope, and both to her pocket. Then she looked at him uncertainly.

'May I ask what that meant?'

Her voice was still strained, and her eyes by no means meek.

'I am sorry,' said the Squire hurriedly. 'I don't know—it was a whim. I wanted to have the pleasure—'

'Of seeing how a person looks under a sudden disappointment?' said Elizabeth, with rather pinched lips.

'Not at all. It was a childish thing—I wanted to see you smile when I gave you the thing back. There—that's the truth. It was you disappointed me!'

Elizabeth's wrath vanished. She hid her face in her hands and laughed. But there was agitation behind the laughter. These were not the normal ways of a reasonable man.

When she looked up, the Squire had moved to a log close beside her. The March sun was pouring down upon them, and there was a robin singing, quite undisturbed by their presence, in a holly-bush near. The Squire's wilful countenance had never seemed to Elizabeth more full of an uncanny and even threatening energy. Involuntarily she withdrew her seat.

'I wish to be allowed to make a very serious proposition to you,' he said eagerly, 'one that I have been considering for weeks.'

Elizabeth—rather weakly—put up a protesting hand.

'I am afraid I must point out to you, Mr. Mannering, that Mrs. Gaddesden will be waiting lunch.'

'If I know Alice, she will not wait lunch! And anyway there are things more important than lunch. May I take it for granted, Miss Bremerton, that you have not been altogether dissatisfied with your life here during this six months?'

Elizabeth looked him gravely in the face. It was clear there was to be no escape.

'How could I have been, Mr. Mannering? You have taught me a great, great deal—and given me wonderful opportunities.'

The Squire nodded, with a look of satisfaction.

'I meant to. Of course Chicksands would say that it was only my own laziness—that I have given you the work I ought to have done myself. My reply would be that it was not my work. If a man happens to be born to a job he is not in the least fitted for, that's the affair of Providence. Providence bungled it when he, she, or it—take which pronoun you like—[Greek: tyche], as you and I know, is feminine—made me a landowner. My proper job was to dig up and decipher what is left of the Greeks. And if any one says that the two jobs are not tanti, and the landowning job is more important than the other, I disagree with him entirely, and it would be impossible for him to prove it. But there was a vacuum—that I quite admit—and Nature—or Providence—disliked it. So she sent you along, my dear lady!'—he turned upon her a glowing countenance—'and you fitted it exactly. You laid hands on what has proved to be your job, and Chicksands, I expect, has been telling you how marvellously you're doing it, and begging you not to let this duffer'—the Squire pointed to his leather waistcoat—'get hold of it again. Hasn't he?'

He smiled triumphantly, as Elizabeth's sudden flush showed that his shaft had hit. But he would not let her speak.

'No—please don't interrupt me! Of course Chicksands took that view. Any sensible man would—not that Henry is really a sensible man. Well, now, then—I want to ask you this. Don't these facts point to a rather—remarkable—combination? You assist me in the job that I was born for. I have been fortunate enough to be able to put into your hands the job that you apparently were born for. And you will forgive me for saying that it might have been difficult for you to find it without my aid. Nature—that is—seems to have endowed you not only with a remarkable head for Greek, but also with the capacity for dealing with the kind of people who drive me distracted—agents and timber-merchants, and stuck-up county officials, whom I want to slay. And you combine your job with an idealism—just as I do mine. You say "it's for the country" or "for the army," as you did just now. And I scribble and collect—for art's sake—for beauty's sake—for the honour of human genius—what you like! What then could be more reasonable—more natural'—the Squire drew himself up gravely—'than that you and I should join forces—permanently? That I should serve your ideas—and you should serve mine?'

The Squire broke off, observing her. Elizabeth had listened to this extraordinary speech with growing bewilderment. She had dreaded lest the Squire—in proposing to marry her—should make love to her. But the coolness of the bargain actually suggested to her, the apparent absence from it of any touch of sentiment, took her completely aback. She was asked, in fact, to become his slave—his bailiff and secretary for life—and the price was offered.

Her face spoke for her, before she could express her feeling in words. The Squire, watching her, hurriedly resumed.

'I put it like an idiot! What I meant was this. If I could induce you to marry me—and put up with me—I believe both our lives might be much more interesting and agreeable!'

The intensity of the demand expressed in his pale hazel eyes and frowning brow struck full upon her.

But Elizabeth slowly shook her head.

'I am very grateful to you, Mr. Mannering, but'—a rather ironical smile showed itself—'I think you hardly understand me. We should never get on.'

'Why?'

'Because our temperaments—our characters—are so different.'

'You can't forgive me about the war?'

'Well, that hurts me,' she said, after a moment, 'but I leave that to Mr. Desmond. No! I am thinking of myself and you. What you propose does not attract me at all. Marriage—in my view—wants something—deeper—to build on than you suggest.'

'Inconsistent woman!' cried the inner voice, but Elizabeth silenced it. She was not inconsistent. She would have resented love-making, but feeling—something to gild the chain!—that she had certainly expected. The absence of it humiliated her.

The Squire's countenance fell.

'Deeper?' he said, with a puzzled look. 'I wonder what you mean? I haven't anything "deeper." There isn't anything "deep" about me.'

Was it true? Elizabeth suddenly recalled those midnight steps on the night of Desmond's departure.

'You know,' he resumed, 'for you have worked with me now for six months—you know at least what kind of a man I am. I assure you it's at any rate no worse than that! And if I ever annoyed you too much, why you could always keep me in order—by the mere threat of going away! I could have cut my throat any day with pleasure during those weeks you were absent!'

Again Elizabeth hid her face in her hands and laughed—rather hysterically. There was something in this last appeal that touched her—some note of 'the imperishable child,' which indeed she had always recognized in the Squire's strange personality.

The Squire waited—frowning. When she looked up at last she spoke in her natural friendly voice.

'I don't think, Mr. Mannering, we had better go on talking like this. I can't accept what you offer me—'

'Again I can't think why,' he interrupted vehemently; 'you have given me no sort of explanation. Why must you refuse?'

'Because I don't feel like it,' she said, smiling. 'That's all I need say. Please don't think me ungrateful. You've offered me now a position and a home—and you've given me my head all this time. I shall never forget it. But I'm afraid—'

'That now I've made such an ass of myself you'll have to go?'

She thought a moment.

'I don't know that I need say that—if—if I could be sure—'

'Of what? Name your conditions!'

His face suddenly lightened again. And again a quick compunction struck her.

She looked at him gently.

'It's only—that I couldn't stay here—you will see of course that I couldn't—unless I were quite sure that this was dead and buried between us—that you would forget it entirely—and let me forget it!'

Was it fancy, or did the long Don Quixotish countenance quiver a little?

'Very well. I will never speak of it again. Will that do?' There was a long pause. The Squire's stick attacked a root of primroses closely, prized it out of the damp ground, and left it there. Then he turned to his companion with a changed aspect. 'Well, now, then—we are as we were—and'—with a long half-indignant breath—'remember I have signed that contract!'

He rose from his seat as he spoke.

They walked home together through the great wood, and across the park. They were mostly silent. The Squire's words 'we are as we were' echoed in the ears of both. And yet both were secretly aware that something irrevocable had happened.

Then, suddenly, beating down all the personal trouble and disquiet in Elizabeth's mind, there rushed upon her afresh, as she walked beside the Squire, that which seemed to shame all personal feeling—the renewed consciousness of England's death-grapple with her enemy—the horror of its approaching crisis. How could this strange being at her elbow be still deaf and blind to it!

* * * * *

They parted in the hall.

'Shall I expect you at six?' said the Squire formally. 'I have some geographical notes I should like you to take down.'

She assented. He went to his study, and shut himself in. For a long time he paced up and down, flinging himself finally into a chair in front of Desmond's portrait. There his thoughts took shape.

'Well, my boy, I thought I'd won some trenches—but the counter-attack has swept me out. Where are you? Are you still alive? If not, I shan't be long after you. I'm getting old, my boy—and this world, as the devil has made it, is not meant for me.'

He remained there for some time, his hands on his knees, staring into the bright face of his son.

Elizabeth too went to her room. On her table lay the Times. She took it up and read the telegrams again. Raid and counter-raid all along the front—and in every letter and telegram the shudder of the nearing event, ghastly hints of that incredible battlefield to come, that hideous hurricane of death in which Europe was to see once more her noblest and her youngest perish.

'Oh, why, why am I a woman?' she clasped her hands above her head in a passion of revolt. 'What does one's own life matter? Why waste a thought—an hour upon it!'

In a second she was at her table putting together the notes she had made that morning in the wood. About a hundred and fifty more ash marked in that wood alone!—thanks to Sir Henry. She rang up Captain Dell, and made sure that they would be offered that night direct to the Government timber department—the Squire's ash, for greater haste, having been now expressly exempted from the general contract. Canadians were coming down to fell them at once. They must be housed. One of the vacant farms, not yet let, was to be got ready for them. She made preliminary arrangements by telephone. Then, after a hasty lunch, at which the Squire did not appear, and Mrs. Gaddesden was more than usually languid and selfish, Elizabeth rushed off to the village on her bicycle. The hospital Commandant was waiting for her, with such workpeople as could be found, and the preparation of the empty house for fifty more beds was well begun. Elizabeth was frugal, but resolute, with the Squire's money. She had leave to spend. But she would not abuse her power; and all through her work she was conscious of a queer remorseful gratitude towards the man in whose name she was acting.

Then she bicycled to the School, where a group of girls whom she had captured for the land were waiting to see her. Their uniforms were lying ready on one of the schoolroom tables. She helped the girls to put them on, laughing, chatting, admiring—ready besides with a dozen homely hints on how to keep well—how to fend for themselves, perhaps in a lonely cottage—how to get on with the farmer—above all, how to get on with the farmer's wife. Her sympathy made everything worth while—put colour and pleasure into this new and strange adventure, of women going out to break up and plough and sow the ancient land of our fathers, which the fighting men had handed over to them. Elizabeth decked the task with honour, so that the girls in their khaki stood round her at last glowing, though dumb!—and felt themselves—as she bade them feel—the comrades-in-arms of their sweethearts and their brothers.

Then with the March twilight she was again at Mannering. She changed her bicycling dress, and six o'clock found her at her desk, obediently writing from the Squire's dictation.

He put her through a stiff series of geographical notes, including a number of quotations from Homer and Herodotus, bearing on the spread of Greek culture in the Aegean. During the course of them he broke out once or twice into his characteristic sayings and illustrations, racy or poetic, as usual, and Elizabeth would lift her blue eyes, with the responsive look in them, on which he had begun to think all his real power of work depended. But not a word passed between them on any other subject; and when it was over she rose, said a quiet good-night, and went away. After she had gone, the Squire sat over the fire, brooding and motionless, for most of the evening.

One March afternoon, a few days later, the following letter reached Pamela, who was still with her sister. It was addressed in Desmond Mannering's large and boyish handwriting.

'B.E.F., March.

'MY DEAR PAMELA—I am kicking my heels here at an engineer's store, waiting for an engineer officer who is wanted to plan some new dug-outs for our battery, and as there is no one to talk to inside except the most inarticulate Hielander I ever struck, I shall at last make use of one of your little oddments, my dear, which are mostly too good to use out here—and write you a letter on a brand new pocket-pad, with a brand new stylo.

'I expect you know from Arthur about where we are. It's a pretty nasty bit of the line. The snipers here are the cleverest beasts out. There isn't a night they don't get some of us, though our fellows are as sharp as needles too. I went over a sniping school last week with a jolly fellow who used to hunt lions in Africa. My hat!—we have learnt a thing or two from the Huns since we started. But you have to keep a steady look-out, I can tell you. There was a man here last night in a sniper's post, shooting through a trench loophole, you understand, which had an iron panel. Well, he actually went to sleep with his rifle in his hand, having had a dog's life for two or three nights. But for a mercy, he had pulled down his panel—didn't know he had!—and the next thing he knew was a bullet spattering on it—just where his eye should have been. He was jolly quick in backing out and into a dug-out, and an hour later he got the man.

'But there was an awful thing here last night. An officer was directing one of our snipers—stooping down just behind him, when a Hun got him—right in the eyes. I was down at the dressing-station visiting one of our men who had been knocked over—and I saw him led in. He was quite blind,—and as calm as anything—telling people what to do, and dictating a post card to the padre, who was much more cut up than he was. I can tell you, Pamela, our Army is fine! Well, thank God, I'm in it—and not a year too late. That's what I keep saying to myself. And the great show can't be far off now. I wouldn't miss it for anything, so I don't give the Hun any more chances of knocking me over than I can help.

'You always want to know what things look like, old Pam, so I'll try and tell you. In the first place, it's just a glorious spring day. At the back of the cranky bit of a ruined farm where we have our diggings (by the way, you may always go back at night and find half your bedroom shot away—that happened to me the other night—there was a tunic of mine still hanging on the door, and when you opened the door, nothing but a hole ten feet deep full of rubble—jolly luck, it didn't happen at night-time!) there are actually some lilac trees, and the buds on them are quite big. And somehow or other the birds manage to sing in spite of the hell the Huns have made of things.

'I'm looking out now due east. There's a tangled mass of trenches not far off, where there's been some hot raiding lately. I see an engineer officer with a fatigue party working away at them—he's showing the men how to lay down a new trench with tapes and pegs. Just to my left some men are filling up a crater. Then there's a lorry full of bits of an old corduroy road they're going to lay down somewhere over a marshy place. There are two sausage balloons sitting up aloft, and some aeroplanes coming and going. Our front line is not more than a mile away, and the German line is about a mile and a quarter. Far off to my right I can just see a field with tanks in it. Ah—there goes a shell on the Hun line—another! Can't think why we're tuning up at this time of day. We shall be getting some of their heavy stuff over directly, if we don't look out. It's rot!

'And the sun is shining like blazes on it all. As I came up I saw some of our men resting on the grass by the wayside. They were going up to the trenches—but it was too early—the sun was too high—they don't send them in till dusk. Awfully good fellows they looked! And I passed a company of Bantams, little Welsh chaps, as fit as mustard. Also a poor mad woman, with a basket of cakes and chocolate. She used to live in the village where I'm sitting now—on a few bricks of it, I mean. Then her farm was shelled to bits and her old husband and her daughter killed. And nothing will persuade her to go. Our people have moved her away several times—but she always comes back—and now they let her alone. Our soldiers indeed are awfully good to her, and she looks after the graves in the little cemetery. But when you speak to her, she never seems to understand, and her eyes—well, they haunt one.

'I'm beginning to get quite used to the life—and lately I have been doing some observation work with an F.O.O. (that means Forward Observation Officer), which is awfully exciting. Your business on these occasions is to get as close to the Germans as you can, without being seen, and you take a telephonist with you to send back word to the guns, and, by Jove, we do get close sometimes!

'Well, dear old Pam, there's my engineer coming across the fields, and I must shut up. Mind—if I don't come back to you—you're just to think, as I told you before, that it's all right. Nothing matters—nothing—but seeing this thing through. Any day we may be in the thick of such a fight as I suppose was never seen in the world before. Or any night—hard luck! one may be killed in a beastly little raid that nobody will ever hear of again. But anyway it's all one. It's worth it.

'Your letters don't sound to me as though you were particularly enjoying life. Why don't you ever give me news of Arthur? He writes me awfully jolly letters, and always says something nice about you. Father has written to me three times—decent, I call it,—though he always abuses Lloyd George, and generally puts some Greek in I can't read. I wonder if we were quite right about Broomie? You never say anything about her either. But I got a letter from Beryl the other day, and what Miss B. seems to be doing with Father and the estate is pretty marvellous.

'All the same I don't hear any gossip as to what you and I were afraid of. I wonder if I was a brute to answer her as I did—and after her nice letter to me? Anyway, it's no wonder she doesn't write to me any more. And she did tell me such a lot of news.

'Good-bye. Your writing-pad is really ripping. Likewise pen. Hullo, there go some more shells. I really must get back and see what's up.—Your loving

'DESMOND.'

Meanwhile in the seething world of London, where the war-effort of an Empire was gathered up into one mighty organism, the hush of expectancy grew ever deeper. Only a few weeks or days could now divide us from the German rush on Paris and the coast. Behind the German lines all was movement and vast preparation. Any day England might rise to find the last fight begun.

Yet morning after morning all the news that came was of raids, endless raids, on both sides—a perpetual mosquito fight, buzzing now here, now there, as information was wanted by the different Commands. Many lives were lost day by day, many deeds of battle done. But it all seemed as nothing—less than nothing—to those whose minds were fixed on the clash to come.

Then one evening, early in the second week in March, a telegram reached Aubrey Mannering at Aldershot. He rushed up to town, and went first to the War Office, where Chicksands was at work.

Chicksands sprang up to meet him.

'You've heard? I've just got this. I made his Colonel promise to wire me if—'

He pointed to an open telegram on his table:

"Desmond badly hit in raid last night. Tell his people. Authorities will probably give permission to come. Well looked after."

The two men stared at each other.

'I have wired to my father,' said Mannering, 'and am now going to meet him at King's Cross. Can you go and tell Pamela to get ready—or Margaret? But he'll want Pamela!'

Neither was able to speak for a moment, till Mannering said, 'I'll bring my father to Margaret's, and then I'll go and see after the permits.'

He lingered a moment.

'I—I think it means the worst.'

Chicksands' gesture was one of despair.

Then they hurried away from the War Office together.



CHAPTER XV

It was afternoon at Mannering.

Elizabeth was walking home from the village through the park. Still the same dry east-wind weather—very cold in the wind, very warm in the sun. If the German offensive began while these fine days held, they would have the luck of weather as we had never had it. Think of the drenching rains and winds of the Passchendaele attack! In the popular mind the notion of 'a German God' was taking actual concrete shape. A huge and monstrous form, sitting on a German hill, plotting with the Kaiser, and ordering the weather precisely as the Kaiser wished—it was thus that English superstition, aided by Imperial speeches and telegrams, began to be haunted.

Yet the world was still beautiful—the silvery stems of the trees, the flitting of the birds, the violet carpets underfoot. On the fighting line itself there was probably a new crop of poets, hymning the Spring with Death for listener, as Julian Grenfell and Rupert Brooke had hymned it, in that first year of the war that seems now an eternity behind us.

Moving along a path converging on her own, Elizabeth perceived the Squire. For the first time that morning he had put off their joint session, and she had not seen him all day. Her mind was now always uneasily aware of him—aware, too, of some change in him, for which in some painful way she felt herself responsible. He had grown strangely tame and placable, and it was generally noticed that he looked older. Yet he was more absorbed than ever in the details of Greek research and the labour of his catalogue. Only, of an evening, he read the Times for a couple of hours, generally in complete silence, while Elizabeth and Mrs. Gaddesden talked and knitted.

An extraordinary softness—an extraordinary compassion—was steadily invading Elizabeth's mind in regard to him. Something suggested to her that he had come into life maimed of some essential element of being, possessed by his fellow-men, and that he was now conscious of the lack, as a Greek Faun might be conscious of the difference between his life and that of struggling and suffering men. Nothing, indeed, could less suggest the blithe nature-life which Greek imagination embodied in the Faun, than the bizarre and restless aspect of the Squire. This spare white-haired man, with his tempers and irritations, was far indeed from Greek joyousness. And yet the Greek sense of beauty, half intellectual, half sensuous, had always seemed to her the strongest force in him. Was it now besieged by something else?—was the Faun in him, at last, after these three years, beginning to feel the bitter grip of humanity?

'"Deeper"? I don't know what you mean. There is nothing "deep" in me!' She often recalled that saying of his, and the look of perplexity which had accompanied it.

To herself of late he had been always courteous and indulgent; she had hardly had an uncivil word from him! But it seemed to her that he had also begun to avoid her, and the suspicion hurt her amazingly. If indeed it were true, then leave Mannering she must.

He came up with her at a cross-road, and threw her a look of enquiry.

'You have been to the village?'

'To the hospital. Thirty fresh wounded arrived last night.'

'I have just seen Chicksands,' said the Squire abruptly. 'Arthur tells him the German attack must be launched in a week or two, and may come any day. A million men, probably, thrown against us.'

'So—the next few months will decide,' said Elizabeth, shuddering.

'My God!—why did we ever go into this war!' cried the man beside her suddenly, in a low, stifled voice. She glanced at him in astonishment. The new excuses, the new tenderness for him in her heart made themselves heard.

'It was for honour,' she breathed—'for freedom!'

'Words—just words. They don't stop bombs!'

But there was nothing truculent in the tone.

'You had a line from Mr. Desmond this morning?'

'Yes—a post card. He was all right.'

Silence dropped between them. They walked on through the beautiful wooded park. Carpets of primroses ran beside them, and masses of wild cherry blossoms were beginning to show amid the beeches. Elizabeth was vaguely conscious of beauty, of warm air, of heavenly sun. But the veil upon the face of all nations was upon her eyes also.

When they reached the house, the Squire said,

'I looked up the passage in the Persae that occurred to me yesterday. Will you come and take it down?'

They went into the library together. On a special table in front of the Squire's desk there stood a magnificent Greek vase of the early fifth century B.C. A king—Persian, from his dress—was sitting in a chair of state, and before him stood a small man apparently delivering a message. [Greek: Aggelos] was roughly written over his head.

The Squire walked up and down with a text of the Persae in his hand.

'"This vase," he dictated, "may be compared with one signed by Xenophantos, in the Paris collection, the subject of which is the Persian king, hunting. Here we have a Persian king, identified by his dress, apparently receiving a message from his army. We may illustrate it by the passage in the Persae of AEschylus, where Atossa receives from a messenger the account of the battle of Salamis—a passage which contains the famous lines describing the Greek onslaught on the Persian fleet:

'"'Then might you hear a mighty shout arise—

'"'Go, ye sons of Hellas!—free your fathers, free your children and your wives, the temples of your gods, and the tombs of your ancestors. For now is all at stake!...'

'"We may recall also the final summing-up by the [Greek: aggelos] of the Persian defeat—

'"'Never, on a single day, was there so great a slaying of men.'"'

Elizabeth took down the words, first in Greek and then in English. They rang in her ears, long after she had transcribed them. The Squire moved up and down in silence, absorbed apparently in the play which he went on reading.

Outside the light was failing. It was close on six o'clock, and summer time had not yet begun.

Suddenly the Squire raised his head.

'That, I think, was the telephone?'

Elizabeth rose—

'May I go? It is probably Captain Dell.'

She hurried away to her office-room, where the call-bell was insistently ringing.

'Yes—who is that?'

'A telegram please—for Mr. Mannering—from London.'

'Wait a moment—I will tell Mr. Mannering.'

But as she turned to go back to the library she saw the Squire had followed her, and was standing at the door. He came forward at once and took up the receiver.

Elizabeth watched him with a fast beating pulse. He heard the message, took out a pencil and wrote it down on a piece of paper lying near, put up the receiver, and turned to her.

'It is from Aubrey. "Desmond is severely wounded. Please come at once. Permission will be given to you and Pamela to go to France. I hope to go with you. Will meet you King's Cross 8.40. Aubrey."'

He steadied himself a moment by a hand on Elizabeth's table. She went up to him, and took his other hand, which closed an instant on hers.

'I thought so,' he said, under his breath. 'I knew it.... Telephone, please, to Fallerton for the taxi, while I go and speak to Forest.'

She gave the order and then hastened into the hall where Mrs. Gaddesden was busy trimming a hat. The Squire's eldest daughter sprang up at sight of Elizabeth.

'Oh, what is it? I know it's bad news—it's Desmond!'

Elizabeth repeated the telegram. 'Your father is going off at once. I have telephoned for the car.'

'Oh, but I must go too—of course I must!' said Alice, weeping. 'Where is my maid?'

Elizabeth pointed out gently that, in speaking of the permits for France, Major Mannering had only referred to the Squire and Pamela.

'Oh, but he must have meant me too—of course he must! Where is my maid?' She rang the upstairs' bell violently. 'Oh, father, how awful!'—the Squire had just entered the hall—'of course I'm going with you?'

'What does she mean?' said the Squire impatiently to Elizabeth. 'Tell her I'm going alone.'

'But, father, you must take me!' cried Alice, running forward with clasped hands. 'He is my brother! I must see him again!'

'He asks for Pamela,' said the Squire grimly. 'Aubrey shall wire to you. You'd better stay here—if Miss Bremerton will look after you.'

'I don't want to be looked after—I want to look after Desmond and you,' said Alice, with sobs.

The Squire's eyes travelled over the soft elaboration of her dress and hair—all her perfumed and fashionable person.

'It is impossible,' he said sharply. Then turning to Elizabeth he gave her a few directions about his letters. 'I shall get money in town. I will wire directly we arrive.'

Alice was silenced, and sat half sulky, half sobbing, by the fire, while the preparations for departure went forward. She offered help hysterically once or twice, but it was not needed.

The little car from the village arrived in half an hour. The Squire stood at the hall door waiting for it. He had not spoken since the news arrived except to give the most necessary orders. But as he saw the car nearing the house, he turned to Elizabeth.

'I expect we shall cross to-night. I shall wire you to-morrow.' Then to Forest—

'Do your best to help Miss Bremerton. She is in charge of everything.'

'Aye, sir. You'll give our duty to Mr. Desmond, sir. I trust you'll bring him home.'

The Squire made no reply. He stood motionless till the car arrived, stepped into it, and was gone.

Elizabeth went back into the house, and to Alice Gaddesden, still sobbing by the fire. At sight of Elizabeth she broke out into complaints of her father's unkindness, mixed presently, to Elizabeth's dismay, with jealousy of her father's secretary.

'I don't know why father didn't let me help him with his packing, and it's I who should have been left in charge! I'm his eldest daughter—it is natural that I should be. I can tell you it's very hard—to see somebody—who's not a relation—doing—doing everything for him!—so that he won't let anybody else advise him—or do anything! It is very—very—wounding for us all. Pamela feels it—I know she does—and Desmond too.'

Elizabeth, very white and distressed, knelt down by her and tried to calm her. But the flood of angry self-pity could not be stayed.

'Oh, I daresay you don't mean it, but you have—yes, you have a way of getting everybody's attention. Of course you're awfully clever—much cleverer than I am—or Pamela. But still it—it isn't pleasant. I know Pamela felt it dreadfully—being cut out with people she likes—people she cares about—and who—who might care for her—like Arthur Chicksands. I believe—yes, I do believe—though she never told me—that's why she went to London.'

Elizabeth rose from her knees. For a moment she was struck dumb. And when at last she spoke it was only to repeat the name Mrs. Gaddesden had mentioned in utter bewilderment.

'Captain Chicksands! What can you mean?'

'Why, of course girls can't hold their own with older women when the older women are so charming and clever—and all that'—cried Mrs. Gaddesden, trying desperately to justify herself—'but I've been awfully sorry for Pamela! Very likely it's not your fault—you couldn't know, I daresay!'

'No, indeed, I didn't know!' said Elizabeth, in a low voice, 'and I can't understand now what you mean.'

'Don't you remember the day Arthur Chicksands spent here just before Desmond went? Don't you remember how he talked to you all the afternoon about the woods? Well, I saw Pamela's face as she was sitting behind you.'

Mrs. Gaddesden raised a triumphant though tear-stained countenance. She was avenging not only her father's latest slight, but a long series of grievances—small and great—connected with Elizabeth's position in the house. And the Squire's farewell to her had turned even her grief to gall.

'If Pamela was hurt, I was a most innocent cause!' said Elizabeth at last, indignantly. 'And if you or any one else had given me the smallest hint—'

'How could we?' was the rather sulky reply. 'Pamela, of course, never said a word—to me. But I rather think she did say something to Desmond.'

'Desmond!' cried Elizabeth under her breath. She turned slowly, and went away, leaving Mrs. Gaddesden panting and a little scared at what she had done.

Elizabeth went back to the library, where there was much to put in order. She forced herself to tidy the Squire's table, and to write a business letter or two. But when that was done she dropped her face in her hands, and shed a few very bitter tears.

She seemed to herself to have failed miserably. In truth, her heart clung to all these people. She soon attached herself to those with whom she lived, and was but little critical of them. The warm, maternal temper which went with her shrewd brain seemed to need perpetually objects on which to spend itself. She could have loved the twins dearly had they let her, and day by day, in the absence of the mother, she had been accustomed to nurse, she had even positively enjoyed 'petting' Mrs. Gaddesden, holding her wool for her, seeing to her hot-water bottles, and her breakfast in bed.

Pamela in love with Arthur Chicksands! And she remembered that a faint idea of it had once crossed her mind, only to be entirely dismissed and forgotten.

'But I ought to have seen—I ought to have known! Am I really a vampire?'

And she remembered how she, in her first youth, had suffered from the dominance and the accomplishment of older women; women who gave a girl no chance, who must have all the admiration, and all the opportunities, who would coolly and cruelly snatch a girl's lover from her.

'And that's how I've appeared to Pamela!' thought Elizabeth between laughing and crying. 'Yet all I did was to talk about ash for aeroplanes! Oh, you poor child—you poor child!'

She seemed to feel Pamela's pain in her own heart—she who had had love and lost it.

'Am I just an odious, clever woman?' She sat down and hated herself. All the passing vanity that had been stirred in her by Sir Henry's compliments, all the natural pleasure she had taken in the success of her great adventure as a business woman, in the ease with which she, the Squire's paid secretary, had lately begun to lead the patriotic effort of an English county—how petty, how despicable even, it seemed, in presence of a boy who had given his all!—even beside a girl in love!

And the Squire—'Was I hard to him too?'

The night came down. All the strange or beautiful shapes in the library wavered and flickered under the firelight—the glorious Nike—the Eros—the noble sketch of the boy in his cricketing dress....

* * * * *

The following morning came a telegram from Aubrey Mannering to Mrs. Gaddesden. Elizabeth had done her best to propitiate her but she remained cold and thorny, and when the telegram came she was pleased that the news came to her first, and—tragic as it was—that Elizabeth had to ask her for it!

'Terrible wounds. Fear no hope. We shall bring him home as soon as possible.'

But an hour later arrived another—from the Squire to Elizabeth.

'Have a bed got ready in the library. Desmond's wish. Also accommodation near for surgeon and nurses. May be able to cross to-morrow. Will wire.'

But it was nearly two days before the final message arrived—from Pamela to her sister. 'Expect us 7.20 to-night.'

By that time the ground-floor of the west wing had been transformed into a temporary ward with its adjuncts, under the direction of a Fallerton doctor, who had brought Desmond into the world and pulled him through his childish illnesses. Elizabeth had moved most of the statues, transferred the Sargent sketch to the drawing-room, and put all the small archaeological litter out of sight. But the Nike was too big and heavy to be moved, and Elizabeth remembered that Desmond had always admired 'the jolly old thing' with its eager outstretched wings and splendid brow. Doctor Renshaw shook his head over the library as a hospital ward, and ordered a vast amount of meticulous cleaning and disinfection.

'No hope?' he said, frowning. 'How do we know? Anyway there shall be no poison I can help.' But the boy's wish was law.

On the afternoon before the arrival, Elizabeth was seized with restlessness. When there was nothing more to be done in the way of hospital provision (for which a list of everything needed had been sent ahead to Doctor Renshaw)—of flowers, of fair linen—and when, in spite of the spring sun shining in through all the open windows on the bare spotless boards, she could hardly bear the sight and meaning of the transformation which had come over the room, she found herself aimlessly wandering about the big house, filled with a ghostly sense of past and future. What was to be the real meaning of her life at Mannering? She could not have deserted the Squire in the present crisis. She had indeed no false modesty as to what her help would mean, practically, to this household under the shadow of death. At least she could run the cook and the servants, wrestle with the food difficulties, and keep the Squire's most essential business going.

But afterwards? She shivered at the word. Yes, afterwards she would go! And Pamela should reign.

Suddenly, in a back passage, leading from her office to the housekeeper's room, she came upon a boy of fourteen, Forest's hall-boy, really a drudge-of-all-work, on whom essential things depended. He was sitting on a chair beside the luggage lift absorbed in some work, over which his head was bent, while an eager tip of tongue showed through his tightened lips.

'What are you doing, Jim?' Elizabeth paused beside the boy, who had always appeared to her as a simple, docile creature, not very likely to make much way in a jostling world.

'Please, Miss, I'm knitting,' said Jim, raising a flushed face.

'Knitting! Knitting what?'

'Knitting a sock for my big brother. He's in France, Miss. Mother learnt me.'

Elizabeth was silent a moment, watching the clumsy fingers as they struggled with the needles.

'Are you very fond of your brother, Jim?' she asked at last.

'Yes, Miss,' said the boy, stooping a little lower over his work. Then he added, 'There's only him and me—and mother. Father was killed last year.'

'Do you know where he is?'

'No, Miss. But Mr. Desmond told me when he was here he might perhaps see him. And I had a letter from Mr. Desmond ten days ago. He'd come across Bob, and he wrote me a letter.'

And out of his pocket he pulled a grimy envelope, and put it into Elizabeth's hands.

'Do you want me to read it, Jim?'

'Please, Miss.' But she was hardly able to read the letters for the dimness in her eyes. Just a boyish letter—from a boy to a boy. But it had in it, quite unconsciously, the sacred touch that 'makes us men.'

A little later she was in the village, where a woman she knew—one Mary Wilson—was dying, a woman who had been used to come up to do charing work at the Hall, before the last illness of a bed-ridden father kept her at home. Mary was still under fifty, plain, clumsy, and the hardest worker in the village. She lived at the outbreak of war with her father and mother. Her brother had been killed at Passchendaele, and Mary's interest in life had vanished with him. But all through the winter she had nursed her father night and day through a horrible illness. Often, as Elizabeth had now discovered, in the bitterest cold of the winter, she had had no bed but the flagstones of the kitchen. Not a word of complaint—and a few shillings for both of them to live upon!

At last the father died. And the night he died Mary staggered across to the wretched cottage of a couple of old-age pensioners opposite. 'I must rest a bit,' she said, and sitting down in a chair by the fire she fainted. Influenza had been on her for some days, and now pneumonia had set in. The old people would not hear of her being taken back to her deserted cottage. They gave up their own room to her; they did everything for her their feeble strength allowed. But the fierce disease beat down her small remaining strength. Elizabeth, since the story came to her knowledge, had done her best to help. But it was too late.