Bridget Cookson had never yet arrived at telling falsehoods for the mere pleasure of it.  On the whole she preferred not to tell them.  But she was well aware that her letter to Nelly contained a good many, both expressed and implied.

Well, that couldn’t be helped.  She put up her letter, and then proceeded to look carefully through the contents of her handbag.  Yes, her passport was all right, and her purse with its supply of notes.  Also the letter that she was to present to the Base Commandant, or the Red Cross representative at the port of landing.  The latter had been left open for her to read.  It was signed ‘Ernest Howson, M.D.,’ and asked that Miss Bridget Cookson might be sent forward to No. 102, General Hospital, X Camp, France, as quickly as possible.

There was also another letter addressed to herself in the same handwriting.  She opened it and glanced through it—­

’DEAR MISS COOKSON,—­I think I have made everything as easy for you as I can on this side.  You won’t have any difficulty.  I’m awfully glad you’re coming.  I myself am much puzzled, and don’t know what to think.  Anyway I am quite clear that my right course was to communicate with you—­first. Everything will depend on what you say.’

The following afternoon, Bridget found herself, with a large party of V.A.D.’s, and other persons connected with the Red Cross, on board a Channel steamer.  The day was grey and cold, and Bridget having tied on her life-belt, and wrapped herself in her thickest cloak, found a seat in the shelter of the deck cabins whence the choppy sea, the destroyer hovering round them, and presently the coast of France were visible.  A secret excitement filled her.  What was she going to see? and what was she going to do?  All round her too were the suggestions of war, commonplace and familiar by now to half the nation, but not to Bridget who had done her best to forget the war.  The steamer deck was crowded with officers returning from leave who were walking up and down, all of them in life-belts, chatting and smoking.  All eyes were watchful of the sea, and the destroyer; and the latest submarine gossip passed from mouth to mouth.  The V.A.D.’s with a few army nurses, kept each other company on the stern deck.  The mild sea gave no one any excuse for discomfort, and the pleasant-faced rosy girls in their becoming uniforms, laughed and gossiped with each other, though not without a good many side glances towards the khaki figures pacing the deck, many of them specimens of English youth at its best.

Bridget however took little notice of them.  She was becoming more and more absorbed in her own problem.  She had not in truth made up her mind how to deal with it, and she admitted reluctantly that she would have to be guided by circumstance.  Midway across, when the French coast and its lighthouses were well in view, she took out the same letter which she had received two days before at the Grasmere post-office, and again read it through.