‘Unless her husband is killed by then,’ said Captain Marsworth, quietly.  ‘His regiment is close to Loos.  He’ll be in the thick of it directly.’

‘Oh no,’ said Cicely, twisting the ends of her veil lightly between a finger and thumb.  ’Just a “cushy” wound, that’ll bring him home on a three months’ leave, and give her the bore of nursing him.’

‘Cicely, you are a hard-hearted wretch!’ said her brother, angrily.  ’I think Marsworth and I will go and stroll till the motor is ready.’

The two men disappeared, and Cicely let herself drop into an arm-chair.  Her eyes, as far as could be seen through her veil, were blazing; the redness in her cheeks had improved upon the rouge with which they were already touched; and the gesture with which she pulled on her gloves was one of excitement.

‘Cicely dear—­what is the matter with you?’ said Miss Martin in distress.  She was fond of Cicely, in spite of that young lady’s extravagances of dress and manner, and she divined something gone wrong.

’Nothing is the matter—­nothing at all.  It is only necessary, sometimes, to shock people,’ said Cicely, calming down.  She threw her head back against the chair and closed her eyes, while her lips still smiled triumphantly.

‘Were you trying to shock Captain Marsworth?’

‘It’s so easy—­it’s hardly worth doing,’ said Cicely, sleepily.  Then after a pause—­’Ah, isn’t that the motor?’

* * * * *

Meanwhile the little hired motor from Ambleside had dropped the Sarratts on the Easedale road, and carried Bridget away in an opposite direction, to the silent but great relief of the newly-married pair.  And soon the husband and wife had passed the last farm in the valley, and were walking up a rough climbing path towards Sour Milk Ghyll, and Easedale Tarn.  The stream was full, and its many channels ran white and foaming down the steep rock face, where it makes its chief leap to the valley.  The summer weather held, and every tree and fell-side stood bathed in a warm haze, suffused with the declining light.  All round, encircling fells in a purple shadow; to the north and east, great slopes appearing—­Helvellyn, Grisedale, Fairfield.  They walked hand in hand where the path admitted—­almost silent—­passionately conscious of each other—­and of the beauty round them.  Sometimes they stopped to gather a flower, or notice a bird; and then there would be a few words, with a meaning only for themselves.  And when they reached the tarn,—­a magical shadowed mirror of brown and purple water,—­they sat for long beside it, while the evening faded, and a breathless quiet came across the hills, stilling all their voices, even, one might have fancied, the voice of the hurrying stream itself.  At the back of Nelly’s mind there was always the same inexorable counting of the hours; and in his a profound and sometimes remorseful pity for this gentle creature who had given herself to him, together with an immense gratitude.