he would die quickly; he might even now be dead.  She saw the thing perpetually as a race between his returning mind—­if he still lived, and it was returning—­and his ebbing strength.  If she had lived in old Sicilian days, she would have made a waxen image like the Theocritean sorceress, and put it by the fire, that as it wasted, so George might waste.  As it was, she passed her time during the forty-eight hours after reading Howson’s letter in a silent and murderous concentration on one thought and wish—­George Sarratt’s speedy death.

What a release indeed for everybody!—­if people would only tell the truth, and not dress up their real feelings and interests in stale sentimentalisms.  Farrell made happy at no very distant date; Nelly settled for life with a rich man who adored her; her own future secured—­with the very modest freedom and opportunity she craved:—­all this on the one side—­futile tragedy and suffering on the other.  None the less, there were moments when, with a start, she realised what other people might think of her conduct.  But after all she could always plead it was a mistake—­an honest mistake.  Are there not constantly cases in the law courts, which shew how easy it is to fail in identifying the right person, or to persist in identifying the wrong one?

During the days before Farrell returned, the two sisters were alone together.  Bridget would gladly have gone away out of sight and hearing of Nelly.  But she did not dare to leave the situation—­above all, the postman—­unwatched.  Meanwhile Nelly made repeated efforts to break down the new and inexplicable barrier which seemed to have arisen between herself and Bridget.  Why would Bridget always sit alone in that chilly outside room, which even with a large fire seemed to Nelly uninhabitable?  She tried to woo her sister, by all the small devices in her power.

’Why won’t you come and sit with me a bit, Bridget?  I’m so dull all alone!’—­she would say when, after luncheon or high tea, Bridget showed signs of immediately shutting herself up again.

‘I can’t.  I must do some work.’

‘Do tell me what you’re doing, Bridget?’

‘Oh, you wouldn’t understand.’

’Well, other people don’t always think me a born idiot!’—­Nelly would say, not without resentment.  ’I really could understand, Bridget, if you’d try.’

‘I haven’t the time.’

’And you’re killing yourself with so many hours of it.  Why should you slave so?  If you only would come and help me sometimes with the Red Cross work, I’d do any needlework for you, that you wanted.’

‘You know I hate needlework.’

‘You’re not doing anything—­not anything—­for the war, Bridget!’ Nelly would venture, wistfully, at last.

’There are plenty of people to do things for the war.  I didn’t want the war!  Nobody asked my opinion.’

And presently the door would shut, and Nelly would be left to watch the torrents of rain outside, and to endeavour by reading and drawing, by needlework and the society of her small friend Tommy, whenever she could capture him, to get through the day.  She pined for Hester, but Hester was doing Welfare work in a munition factory at Leeds, and could not be got at.