Mr. Stewart found Miss Farrell anything but an agreeable companion.  He was not a shrewd observer, and the love-affairs especially of his fellow-creatures were always a surprise and a mystery to him.  But he vaguely understood that his little granddaughter was afraid of Miss Farrell and did not get on with her.  He, too, was afraid of Cicely and her sharp tongue, while her fantastic dress and her rouge put him in mind of passages in the prophet Ezekiel, the sacred author of whom he was at that moment making a special study with a view to a Cambridge University sermon.  It would be terrible if Daisy were ever to take to imitating Miss Farrell.  He was a little disturbed about Daisy lately.  She had been so absent-minded, and sometimes—­even—­a little flighty.  She had forgotten the day before, to look out some passages for him; and there was a rent in his old overcoat she had not mended.  He was disagreeably conscious of it.  And what could she have to say to Captain Marsworth?  It was all rather odd—­and annoying.  He walked in a preoccupied silence.

Farrell and Nelly meanwhile were, it seemed, in no lack of conversation.  He told her that he might possibly be going to France, in a week or two, for a few days.  The Allied offensive on the Somme was apparently shutting down for the winter.  ’The weather in October just broke everybody’s heart, vile luck!  Nothing to be done but to make the winter as disagreeable to the Boche as we can, and to go on piling up guns and shells for the spring.  I’m going to look at hospitals at X—–­’ he named a great base camp—­’and I daresay they’ll let me have a run along some bit of the front, if there’s a motor to be had.’

Nelly stopped abruptly.  He could see the colour fluctuating in her delicate face.

‘You’re going to X—–?  You—­you might see Dr. Howson?’

‘Howson?’ he said, surprised.  ’Do you know him?  Yes, I shall certainly see Howson.  He’s now the principal surgeon at one of the General Hospitals there, where I specially want to look at some new splints they’ve been trying.’

Nelly moved on without speaking for a little.  At last she said, almost inaudibly—­

‘He promised me—­to make enquiries.’

‘Did he?’ Farrell spoke in the grave, deep voice he seemed to keep for her alone, which was always sweet to her ear.  ’And he has never written?’ She shook her head.  ’But he would have written—­instantly—­you may be quite sure, if there had been the slightest clue.’

‘Oh yes, I know, I know,’ she said hastily.

’Give me any message for him you like—­or any questions you’d like me to ask.’

’Yes’—­she said, vaguely.

It seemed to him she was walking languidly, and he was struck by her weary look.  The afternoon had turned windy and cold with gusts of rain.  But when he suggested an immediate return to the cottage, Nelly would have none of it.

‘We were to meet Captain Marsworth and Miss Stewart.  Where are they?’