And the good man, so stout and broad-shouldered that he seemed to be bursting out of his khaki, hurried away.  The lady seemed to him curiously hard and silent—­’a forbidding sort of party.’  But then he himself was a person of sentiment, expressing all the expected feelings in the right places, and with perfect sincerity.

Bridget took her modest dinner, and then sat by the window, looking out over a lonely expanse of sand, towards a moonlit sea.  To right and left were patches of pine wood, and odd little seaside villas, with fantastic turrets and balconies.  A few figures passed—­nurses in white head dresses, and men in khaki.  Bridget understood after talking to the little patronne, that the name of the place was Paris a la Mer, that there was a famous golf course near, and that large building, with a painted front to the right, was once the Casino, and now a hospital for officers.

It was all like a stage scene, the sea, the queer little houses, the moonlight, the passing figures.  Only the lights were so few and dim, and there was no music.

‘Miss Cookson?’

Bridget turned, to see a tall young surgeon in khaki, tired, pale and dusty, who looked at her with a frown of worry, a man evidently over-driven, and with hardly any mind to give to this extra task that had been put upon him.

‘I’m sorry to be late—­but we’ve had an awful rush to-day,’ he said, as he perfunctorily shook hands.  ’There was some big fighting on the Somme, the night before last, and the casualty trains have been coming in all day.  I’m only able to get away for five minutes.

’Well now, Miss Cookson’—­he sat down opposite her, and tried to get his thoughts into business shape—­’first let me tell you it’s a great misfortune for you that Howson’s had to go off.  I know something about the case—­but not nearly as much as he knows.  First of all—­how old was your brother-in-law?’

‘About twenty-seven—­I don’t know precisely.’

’H’m.  Well of course this man looks much older than that—­but the question is what’s he been through?  Was Lieutenant Sarratt fair or dark?’

‘Rather dark.  He had brown hair.’

‘Eyes?’

‘I can’t remember precisely,’ said Bridget, after a moment.  ’I don’t notice the colour of people’s eyes.  But I’m sure they were some kind of brown.’

’This man’s are a greenish grey.  Can you recollect anything peculiar about Lieutenant Sarratt’s hands?’

Again Bridget paused for a second or two, and then said—­’I can’t remember anything at all peculiar about them.’

The surgeon looked at her closely, and was struck with the wooden irresponsiveness of the face, which was however rather handsome, he thought, than otherwise.  No doubt, she was anxious to speak deliberately, when so much might depend on her evidence and her opinion.  But he had never seen any countenance more difficult to read.

‘Perhaps you’re not a close observer of such things?’