“...  Too weak to bury him, or even carry him out of the tent....  He must lie where he is....  Last spoonful of glycerine and hot water....  Divine service at 5:30 P.M....”

Once more Lloyd faltered in her writing; her hand moved slower.  Shut her teeth though she might, the sobs would come; swiftly the tears brimmed her eyes, but she tried to wink them back, lest Bennett should see.  Heroically she wrote to the end of the sentence.  A pause followed: 

“Yes—­’ divine services at’—­I—­I—­”

The pen dropped from her fingers and she sank down upon her desk, her head bowed in the hollow of her bare arm, shaken from head to foot with the violence of the crudest grief she had ever known.  Bennett threw his journal from him, and came to her, taking her in his arms, putting her head upon his shoulder.

“Why, Lloyd, what is it—­why, old chap, what the devil!  I was a beast to read that to you.  It wasn’t really as bad as that, you know, and besides, look here, look at me.  It all happened three years ago.  It’s all over with now.”

Without raising her head, and clinging to him all the closer, Lloyd answered brokenly: 

“No, no; it’s not all over.  It never, never will be.”

“Pshaw, nonsense!” Bennett blustered, “you must not take it to heart like this.  We’re going to forget all about it now.  Here, damn the book, anyhow!  We’ve had enough of it to-day.  Put your hat on.  We’ll have the ponies out and drive somewhere.  And to-night we’ll go into town and see a show at a theatre.”

“No,” protested Lloyd, pushing back from him, drying her eyes.  “You shall not think I’m so weak.  We will go on with what we have to do—­with our work.  I’m all right now.”

Bennett marched her out of the room without more ado, and, following her, closed and locked the door behind them.  “We’ll not write another word of that stuff to-day.  Get your hat and things.  I’m going out to tell Lewis to put the ponies in.”

But that day marked a beginning.  From that time on Lloyd never faltered, and if there were moments when the iron bit deeper than usual into her heart, Bennett never knew her pain.  By degrees a course of action planned itself for her.  A direct appeal to Bennett she believed would not only be useless, but beyond even her heroic courage.  She must influence him indirectly.  The initiative must appear to come from him.  It must seem to him that he, of his own accord, roused his dormant resolution.  It was a situation that called for all her feminine tact, all her delicacy, all her instinctive diplomacy.