Kitty threw her a searching glance.

“Very well,” she said.  “Try to rest a little.  I’ll come up the moment we hear any news.”

She left the room and, as the door closed behind her, Nan gave vent to a queer, hysterical laugh.  Rest!  How could she rest, knowing that now Peter was free—­free to make her his wife—­the great gates of fate might yet swing to, shutting them both out of lovers garden for ever!

For she had realised, with a desperate clearness of vision, that if Roger were incurably injured, she could not add to his burden by retracting her promise to be his wife.  She must make the uttermost sacrifice—­give up the happiness to which the death of Celia Mallory had opened the way—­and devote herself to mitigating Roger’s lot in so far as it could be mitigated.  There was no choice possible to her.  Duty, with stern, sad eyes, stood beside her, bidding her follow the hard path of sacrifice which winds upward, through a blurred mist of tears, to the great white Throne of God.  The words of the little song which had always seemed a link betwixt Peter and herself came back to her like some dim echo from the past.

She sank on her knees, her arms flung out across the bed.  She did not consciously pray, but her attitude of thought and spirit was a wordless cry that she might be given courage and strength to do this thing if it must needs be.

It was late in the afternoon when Kitty, treading softly, came into Nan’s room.

“Have you been to sleep?” she asked.

“No.”  Nan felt as though she had not slept for a year.  Her eyes were dry and burning in their sockets.

“There’s very bad news about Roger,” said Kitty, in the low tones of one who has hardly yet recovered from the shock of unexpectedly grave tidings.  “His spine is so injured that he’ll never be able to walk again.  He”—­she choked over the telling of it—­“his legs will always be paralysed.”

Nan stared at her vacantly, as though she hardly grasped the meaning of the words.  Then, without speaking, she covered her face with her hands.  The room seemed to be full of silence—­a heavy terrible silence, charged with calamity.  At last, unable to endure the burden of the intense quiet any longer, Kitty stirred restlessly.  The tiny noise of her movement sounded almost like a pistol-shot in that profound stillness.  Nan’s hands dropped from her face and she picked up the letter which still lay on the bed and tore it into small pieces, very carefully, tossing them into the waste-paper basket.

Kitty watched her for a moment as though fascinated.  Then suddenly she spoke.

“Why are you doing that?  Why are you doing that?” she demanded irritably.

Nan looked across at her with steady eyes.

“Because—­it’s finished!  That letter will never be needed now.”

“It will!  Of course it will!” insisted Kitty.  “Not now—­but later—­when Roger’s got over the shock of the accident.”