Now they were on the high ground above Keswick; and to the west and north rose a superb confusion of mountain-forms, peaked and rounded and cragged, with water shining among them, and the silver cloud wreaths looped and threaded through the valleys, leaving the blue or purple tops suspended, high in air, unearthly and alone, to parley with the setting sun.  Not yet setting indeed—­but already flooding the west with a glory in which the further peaks had disappeared—­burnt away; a shining holocaust to the Gods of Light and Fire.

Then a sharp descent, a run through Keswick, another and a tamer lake, a sinking of the mountain-forms, and they were nearing the woods of Carton.  Both sisters had been silent for some time.  Nelly was wrapt in thoughts of George.  Would he get leave before Christmas?  Suppose he were wounded slightly—­just a wound that would send him home, and let her nurse him?—­a wound from which he would be sure to get well—­not too quickly!  She could not make up her mind to wish it—­to pray for it—­it seemed like tempting Providence.  But how she had envied a young couple whom she sometimes met walking on the Ambleside road!—­a young private of one of the Border regiments, with a bandaged arm, and his sweetheart.  Once—­with that new free-masonry which the war has brought about, she had stopped to speak to them.  The boy had been quite ready to talk about his wound.  It had seemed nothing at first—­just a fragment of shrapnel—­he had scarcely known he was hit.  But abscess after abscess had formed—­a leading nerve had been injured—­it might be months before he could use it again.  And meanwhile the plain but bright-faced girl beside him was watching over him; he lodged with her parents as his own were dead; and they were to be married soon.  No chance of his going out again!  The girl’s father would give him work in his garage.  They had the air of persons escaped from shipwreck and ashamed almost of their own secret happiness, while others were still battling with and sinking in the waves.

* * * * *

A flowery lodge, a long drive through green stretches of park, with a heather fell for background—­and then the motor, leaving to one side a huge domed pile with the Union Jack floating above it, ran through a wood, and drew up in front of Carton Cottage, a low building on the steps of which stood Sir William Farrell.

’Delighted to see you!  Come in, and let Cicely give you some tea.  They’ll see to your luggage!’

He led in Nelly, and Bridget followed, glancing from side to side, with an eye shrewdly eager, an eye that took in and appraised all it saw.  A cottage indeed!  It had been built by Sir William’s father, for his only sister, a maiden lady, to whom he was much attached.  ‘Aunt Sophy’ had insisted on a house to herself, being a person of some ruggedness and eccentricity of character and averse to any sort of dependence on other people’s ways and habits.