‘Won’t it be awfully expensive?’ said Nelly after a pause, as Bridget did not answer.  The younger sister was putting her painting things away, and making ready to go in.  For though the day had been wonderfully warm for October, the sun had just set over Bowfell, and the air had grown suddenly chilly.

‘Well, I can’t help it,’ said Bridget, rather roughly.  ’I shall have to go.’

Something in her voice made Nelly look at her.

’I say you are tired!  Come in and lie down a little.  That walk from Grasmere’s too much for you!’

Bridget submitted with most unusual docility.

The sisters entered the house together.

‘I’ll go upstairs for a little,’ said Bridget.  ’I shall be all right by supper.’  Then, as she slowly mounted the stairs, a rather gaunt and dragged figure in her dress of grey alpaca, she turned to say—­

’I met Sir William on the road just now.  He passed me in the car, and waved his hand.  He called out something—­I couldn’t hear it.’

‘Perhaps to say he would come to supper,’ said Nelly, her face brightening.  ‘I’ll go and see what there is.’

Bridget went upstairs.  Her small raftered room was invaded by the last stormy light of the autumn evening.  The open casement window admitted a cold wind.  Bridget shut it, with a shiver.  But instead of lying down, she took a chair by the window, absently removed her hat, and sat there thinking.  The coppery light from the west illumined her face with its strong discontented lines, and her hands, which were large, but white and shapely—­a source indeed of personal pride to their owner.

Presently, in the midst of her reverie, she heard a step outside, and saw Sir William Farrell approaching the gate.  Nelly, wrapped in a white shawl, was still strolling about the garden, and Bridget watched their meeting—­Nelly’s soft and smiling welcome, and Farrell’s eagerness, his evident joy in finding her alone.

‘And she just wilfully blinds herself!’ thought Bridget contemptuously—­’talks about his being a brother to her, and that sort of nonsense.  He’s in love with her!—­of course he’s in love with her.  And as for Nelly—­she’s not in love with him.  But she’s getting used to him; she depends on him.  When he’s not there she misses him.  She’s awfully glad to see him when he comes.  Perhaps, it’ll take a month or two.  I give it a month or two—­perhaps six months—­perhaps a year.  And then she’ll marry him—­and—­’

Here her thoughts became rather more vague and confused.  They were compounded of a fierce impatience with the war, and of certain urgent wishes and ambitions, which had taken possession of a strong and unscrupulous character.  She wanted to travel.  She wanted to see the world, and not to be bothered by having to think of money.  Contact with very rich people, like the Farrells, and the constant spectacle of what an added range and power is given to the human will