Nelly, looking at her, wondered afresh how they had ever come to be friends.  Yet they were friends, and her interest in Cicely’s affairs was one of the slender threads drawing her back to life.

It had all happened when she was ill at the flat; after that letter from the Geneva Red Cross which reported that in spite of exhaustive enquiries among German hospitals, and in the prisoners’ camps no trace of Lieutenant Sarratt could be found.  On the top of the letter, and the intolerable despair into which it had plunged her, had come influenza.  There was no doubt—­Nelly’s recollection faced it candidly—­that she would have come off badly but for Cicely.  Bridget had treated the illness on the hardening plan, being at the moment slightly touched with Christian Science.  Nelly should ‘think it away.’  To stay in bed and give in was folly.  She meanwhile had found plenty to do in London, and was away for long hours.  In one of these absences, Cicely—­having been seized with a sudden hunger for the flesh-pots of ’town’—­appeared at the flat with her maid.  She discovered Nelly Sarratt in bed, and so weak as to be hardly capable of answering any question.  Mrs. Simpson was doing her best; but she gave an indignant account of Bridget’s behaviour, and Cicely at once took a strong line, both as a professional nurse—­of sorts—­and as mistress of the flat.  Bridget, grimly defensive, was peremptorily put on one side, and Cicely devoted the night she was to have spent in dancing to tending her half-conscious guest.  In the days that followed she fell, quite against her will, under the touching charm of Nelly’s refinement, humility and sweetness.  Her own trenchant and masterful temper was utterly melted, for the time, by Nelly’s helpless state, by the grief which threatened to kill her, and by a gratefulness for any kindness shewn her, which seemed to Cicely almost absurd.

She fell in love—­impetuously—­with the little creature thus thrown upon her pity.  She sent for a trained nurse and their own doctor.  She wired for Hester Martin, and in forty-eight hours Bridget had been entirely ousted, and Nelly’s state had begun to shew signs of improvement.  Bridget took the matter stoically.  ‘I know nothing about nursing,’ she said, with composure.  ’If you wish to look after my sister, by all means look after her.  Many thanks.  I propose to go and stay near the British Museum, and will look in here when I can.’

So she departed, and Cicely stayed in London for three weeks until Nelly was strong enough to go to Torquay.  Then, reluctantly, she gave up her charge to Bridget, she being urgently wanted at Carton, and Hester at Rydal.  Bridget reappeared on the scene with the same sangfroid as she had left it.  She had no intention of quarrelling with the Farrells whatever they might do; and in an eminently satisfactory interview with Sir William—­quite unknown to Nelly—­she allowed him to give her a cheque which covered all their expenses at Torquay.