‘Should you know him again, if you saw him?’ she asked, abruptly.

‘I think so,’ said the doctor with slight hesitation, ’I remember him very well at the wedding.  Tall and slight?—­not handsome exactly, but a good-looking gentlemanly chap?  Oh yes, I remember him.  But of course, to be alive now, if by some miraculous chance he were alive, and not to have let you know—­why he must have had some brain mischief—­paralysis—­or——­’

‘He isn’t alive!’ said Bridget impatiently.  ’The War Office have no doubts whatever.’

Howson was rather surprised at the sudden acerbity of her tone.  But his momentary impression was immediately lost in the interest roused in him by the emergence from the wood, in front, of Nelly and Cicely.  He was a warm-hearted fellow, himself just married, and the approach of the black-veiled figure, which he had last seen in bridal white, touched him like an incident in a play.

Nelly recognised him from a short distance, and went a little pale.

‘Who is that with your sister?’ asked Cicely.

‘It is a man we knew in Manchester,—­Doctor Howson.’

‘Did you expect him?’

‘Oh no.’  After a minute she added—­’He was at our wedding.  I haven’t seen him since.’

Cicely was sorry for her.  But when the walkers met, Nelly greeted the young man very quietly.  He himself was evidently moved.  He held her hand a little, and gave her a quick, scrutinising look.  Then he moved on beside her, and Cicely, in order to give Nelly the opportunity of talking to him for which she evidently wished, was forced to carry off Bridget, and endure her company patiently all the way home.

When Nelly and the doctor arrived, following close on the two in front, Cicely cried out that Nelly must go and lie down at once till supper.  She looked indeed a deplorable little wraith; and the doctor, casting, again, a professional eye on her, backed up Cicely.

Nelly smiled, resisted, and finally disappeared.

‘You’ll have to take care of her,’ said Howson to Bridget.  ’She looks to me as if she couldn’t stand any strain.’

’Well, she’s not going to have any.  This place is quiet enough!  She’s been talking of munition-work, but of course we didn’t let her.’

Cicely took the young man aside and expounded her brother’s plan of the farm on the western side of Loughrigg.  Howson asked questions about its aspect, and general comfort, giving his approval in the end.

‘Oh, she’ll pull through,’ he said kindly, ’but she must go slow.  This kind of loss is harder to bear—­physically—­than death straight out.  I’ve promised her’—­he turned to Bridget—­’to make all the enquiries I can.  She asked me that at once.’

After supper, just as Howson was departing, Farrell appeared, having driven himself over through the long May evening, ostensibly to take Cicely home, but really for the joy of an hour in Nelly’s company.