She put the letter down with a rather tremulous hand.  It had depressed her, and made her anxious.  She read in it that George had been through horrible things—­and had suffered.

Then all that she had seen in the hospital came back upon her, and rising restlessly she threw herself, without undressing, face downwards on her bed.  That officer, blanched to the colour of white wax, who had lost a leg after frightful haemorrhage; that other, the merest boy, whose right eye had been excised—­she could not get them out of her mind, nor the stories they had told her of the actions in which they had been wounded.

‘George—­George!’ It was a moan of misery, stifled in the darkness.

Then, suddenly, she remembered she had not said good-night to Bridget.  She had forgotten Bridget.  She had been unkind.  She got up, and sped along the passage to Bridget’s room.

‘Bridget!’ She just opened the door.  ‘May I come in?’

‘Come in.’

Bridget was already in bed.  In her hands was a cup of steaming chocolate which a maid had just brought her, and she was lingering over it with a face of content.

Nelly opened her eyes in astonishment.

‘Did you ask for it, Bridget?’

’I did—­or rather the housemaid asked what I would have.  She said—­“ladies have just what they like in their rooms.”  So I asked for chocolate.’

Nelly sat down on the bed.

‘Is it good?’

‘Excellent,’ said Bridget calmly.  ‘Whatever did you expect?’

‘We seem to have been eating ever since we came!’ said Nelly frowning,—­’and they call it economising!’

Bridget threw back her head with a quiet laugh.

‘Didn’t I tell you so?’

‘I wondered how you got on at dinner?’ said Nelly hesitating.  ’Captain Marsworth didn’t seem to be taking much trouble?’

‘It didn’t matter to me,’ said Bridget.  ’That kind of man always behaves like that,’

Nelly flushed.

‘You mean soldiers behave like that?’

‘Well, I don’t like soldiers—­brothers-in-law excepted, of course.’  And Bridget gave her short, rather harsh laugh.

Nelly got up.

’Well, I shall be ready to go as early as you like on Monday, Bridget.  It was awfully good of you to pack all my things so nicely!’

‘Don’t I always?’ Bridget laughed.

‘You do—­you do indeed.  Good-night.’

She touched Bridget’s cheek with her lips and stole away.

Bridget was left to think.  There was a dim light in the room showing the fine inlaid furniture, the flowery paper, the chintz-covered arm-chairs and sofa, and, through an open door, part of the tiled wall of the bathroom.

Miss Cookson had never slept in such a room before, and every item in it pleased a starved sense in her.  Poverty was hateful!  Could one never escape it?

Then she closed her eyes, and seemed to be watching Sir William and Nelly in the gardens, his protecting eager air—­her face looking up.  Of course she might have married him—­with the greatest ease!—­if only George Sarratt had not been in the way.