The night came down.  All the strange or beautiful shapes in the library wavered and flickered under the firelight—­the glorious Nike—­the Eros—­the noble sketch of the boy in his cricketing dress....

* * * * *

The following morning came a telegram from Aubrey Mannering to Mrs. Gaddesden.  Elizabeth had done her best to propitiate her but she remained cold and thorny, and when the telegram came she was pleased that the news came to her first, and—­tragic as it was—­that Elizabeth had to ask her for it!

’Terrible wounds.  Fear no hope.  We shall bring him home as soon as possible.’

But an hour later arrived another—­from the Squire to Elizabeth.

’Have a bed got ready in the library.  Desmond’s wish.  Also accommodation near for surgeon and nurses.  May be able to cross to-morrow.  Will wire.’

But it was nearly two days before the final message arrived—­from Pamela to her sister.  ‘Expect us 7.20 to-night.’

By that time the ground-floor of the west wing had been transformed into a temporary ward with its adjuncts, under the direction of a Fallerton doctor, who had brought Desmond into the world and pulled him through his childish illnesses.  Elizabeth had moved most of the statues, transferred the Sargent sketch to the drawing-room, and put all the small archaeological litter out of sight.  But the Nike was too big and heavy to be moved, and Elizabeth remembered that Desmond had always admired ‘the jolly old thing’ with its eager outstretched wings and splendid brow.  Doctor Renshaw shook his head over the library as a hospital ward, and ordered a vast amount of meticulous cleaning and disinfection.

‘No hope?’ he said, frowning.  ’How do we know?  Anyway there shall be no poison I can help.’  But the boy’s wish was law.

On the afternoon before the arrival, Elizabeth was seized with restlessness.  When there was nothing more to be done in the way of hospital provision (for which a list of everything needed had been sent ahead to Doctor Renshaw)—­of flowers, of fair linen—­and when, in spite of the spring sun shining in through all the open windows on the bare spotless boards, she could hardly bear the sight and meaning of the transformation which had come over the room, she found herself aimlessly wandering about the big house, filled with a ghostly sense of past and future.  What was to be the real meaning of her life at Mannering?  She could not have deserted the Squire in the present crisis.  She had indeed no false modesty as to what her help would mean, practically, to this household under the shadow of death.  At least she could run the cook and the servants, wrestle with the food difficulties, and keep the Squire’s most essential business going.

But afterwards?  She shivered at the word.  Yes, afterwards she would go!  And Pamela should reign.

Suddenly, in a back passage, leading from her office to the housekeeper’s room, she came upon a boy of fourteen, Forest’s hall-boy, really a drudge-of-all-work, on whom essential things depended.  He was sitting on a chair beside the luggage lift absorbed in some work, over which his head was bent, while an eager tip of tongue showed through his tightened lips.