Bridget wrote the letter, and disappeared to post it.  Nelly was left alone in darkness.  The air about her seemed to be ringing with the words of her letter.

’MY OWN DARLING,—­We are just going over.  I have found a man going back to D.H.Q. who will post this—­and I just want you to know that, whatever happens, you are my beloved, and our love can’t die.  God bless you, my dear, dear wife....  We are all in good spirits—­everything ought to go well—­and I will write the first moment possible.

     ‘GEORGE.’

She seemed to see him, tearing the leaf from the little block she had given him, and standing in the trench, so slim and straight in his khaki.  And then, what happened after? when the rush came?  Would she never know?  If he never came back to her, what was she going to do with her life?  Waves of lonely terror went through her—­terror of the long sorrow before her—­terror of her own weakness.

And then again—­reaction.  She sat up in bed, angrily wrestling with her own lapse from hope.  Of course it was all coming right!  She turned on the light, with a small trembling hand, and tried to read a newspaper Bridget had brought in.  But the words swam before her; the paper dropped from her grasp; and when Bridget came back, her face was hidden, she seemed to be asleep.

* * * * *

‘Is this it?’ said Nelly, looking in alarm at the new and splendid house before which the taxi had drawn up.

‘Well, it’s the right number!’ And Bridget, rather flurried, looked at the piece of paper on which Farrell had written the address for her, the night before.

She jumped out of the taxi and ran up some marble steps towards a glass door covered with a lattice metal-work, beyond which a hall, a marble staircase and a lift shewed dimly.  Inside, a porter in livery, at the first sight of the taxi, put down the newspaper he was reading, and hurried to the door.

‘Is this Sir William Farrell’s flat?’ asked Bridget.

’It’s all right, Miss.  They’re expecting you.  Sir William went off this morning.  I was to tell you he had to go down to Aldershot to-day on business, but he hoped to look in this evening, on his way to Euston, to see that you had everything comfortable.’

Reluctantly, and with a feeble step, Nelly descended, helped by the porter.

‘Oh, Bridget, I wish we hadn’t come!’ She breathed it into her sister’s ear, as they stood together in the hall, waiting for the lift which had been called.  Bridget shut her lips tightly, and said nothing.

The lift carried them up to the third floor, and there at the top the ex-army cook and his wife were waiting, a pair of stout and comfortable people, all smiles and complaisance.  The two small trunks were shouldered by the man, and the woman led the way.

‘Lunch will be ready directly, Ma’am,’ she said to Nelly, who followed her in bewilderment across a hall panelled in marble and carpeted with something red and soft.