So there she sat alone, brooding and planning, too timid to talk to Bridget of her own schemes, and, in her piteous indecision, longing guiltily for Farrell’s return.  Meanwhile she had written to several acquaintances who were doing V.A.D. work in various voluntary hospitals, to ask for information.

Suddenly, after the rain came frost and north wind—­finally snow; the beginning in the north of the fiercest winter Western Europe has known for many years.  Over heights and dales alike spread the white Leveller, melting by day in the valley bottoms, and filling up his wastage by renewed falls at night.  Nelly ventured out sometimes to look at the high glories of Wetherlam and the Pikes, under occasional gleams of sun.  Bridget never put a foot out of doors, except when she went to the garden gate to look for the postman in the road, and take the letters from him.

At last, one evening, when after a milder morning a bitter blast from the north springing up at dusk had, once more, sent gusts of snow scudding over the fells, Nelly’s listening ear heard the well-known step at the gate.  She sprang up with a start of joy.  She had been so lonely, so imprisoned with her own sad thoughts.  The coming of this kind, strong man, so faithful to his small friend through all the stress of his busy and important life, made a sudden impression upon her, which brought the tears to her eyes.  She thought of Carton, of its splendid buildings, and the great hospital which now absorbed them; she seemed to see Farrell as the king of it all, the fame of his doings spreading every month over the north, and wiping out all that earlier conception of him as a dilettante and an idler of which she had heard from Hester.  And yet, escaping from all that activity, that power, that constant interest and excitement, here he was, making use of his first spare hour to come through the snow and the dark, just to spend an hour with Nelly Sarratt, just to cheer her lonely little life.

Nelly ran to the window and opened it.

‘Is that really you?’ she called, joyously, while the snow drifted against her face.

Farrell, carrying a lantern, was nearing the porch.  The light upon his face as he turned shewed her his look of delight.

‘I’m later than I meant, but the roads are awful.  May I walk in?’

She ran down to meet him; then hung back rather shyly in the passage, while he took off his overcoat and shook the snow from his beard.

‘Have you any visitors?’ he asked, still dusting away the snow.

‘Only Bridget.  I asked Hester, but she couldn’t come.’