The motor stopped.  Sir William jumped down, but before he came to open the door for her, she saw him turn round and wave his hand to two persons standing outside the station.  They hurried towards the motor, and as Nelly stepped down from it, she felt herself grasped by eager hands.

’You poor darling!  I thought we couldn’t be in time.  But we flew.  Don’t trouble about anything.  We’ve done it all.’

Cicely!—­and behind her Marsworth.

Nelly drew back.

‘Dear Cicely!’ she said faintly—­’but I can manage—­I can manage quite well.’

Resistance, however, was useless.  Marsworth and Cicely, it seemed, were going to London with her—­Cicely probably to France; and Marsworth had already telegraphed about her passport.  She would have gladly gone by herself, but she finally surrendered—­for George’s sake, that she might get to him the quicker.

Then everything was done for her.  Amid the bustle of the departing train, she was piteously aware of Farrell, and just before they started, she leant out to give him her hand.

‘I will tell George all you have done for me,’ she said, gulping down a sob.

He pressed her hand before releasing it, but said nothing.  What was there to say?  Meanwhile, Cicely, to ease the situation, was chattering hard, describing how Farrell had sent his chauffeur to Ambleside on a motor bicycle, immediately after leaving Nelly, and so had got a telephone message through to Cicely.

’We had the small car out and ready in ten minutes, and, by good luck, there was a motor-transport man on leave, who had come to see a brother in the hospital.  We laid hands on him, and he drove us here.  But it’s a mercy we’re not sitting on the Raise!  You remember that heap of stones on the top of the Raise, that thing they say is a barrow—­the grave of some old British party before the Flood?—­well, the motor gave out there!  Herbert and the chauffeur sat under it in the snow and worked at it.  I thought the river was coming over the road, and that the wind would blow us all away.  But it’ll be all right for your crossing to-morrow—­the storm will have quite gone down.  Herbert thinks you’ll start about twelve o’clock,—­and you’ll be at the camp that same night.  Oh, isn’t it wonderful!—­isn’t it ripping?’ cried Cicely under her breath, stooping down to kiss Nelly, while the two men talked at the carriage window.—­’You’re going to get him home!  We’ll have the best men in London to look after him.  He’ll pull through, you’ll see—­he’ll pull through!’

Nelly sank into a seat and closed her eyes.  Cicely’s talk—­why did she call Marsworth ’Herbert’?—­was almost unbearable to her. She knew through every vein that she was going across the Channel—­to see George die.  If only she were in time!—­if only she might hold him in her arms once more!  Would the train never go?