Everybody in Mannering had gone to bed but Desmond and Pamela. It
was not certain indeed that the Squire had gone to bed, but as there
was a staircase beside one of the doors of the library leading
direct to his room, it was not likely that he would cross the hall
again. The twins felt themselves alone.
'I daresay there'll be a raid to-night,' said Desmond, 'it's so
bright and still. Put down that lamp a moment, Pamela.'
She obeyed, and he threw away his cigarette, went to one of the
windows, and drew up the blinds.
'Listen!' he said, holding up his hand. Pamela came to his side, and
they both heard through the stillness that sound of distant guns
which no English ear had heard--till now--since the Civil War.
'And there are the searchlights!'
For over London, some forty miles away behind a low range of hills,
faint fingers of light were searching the sky.
'At this very moment, perhaps,'--said the boy between his
teeth--'those demons are blowing women and children to pieces--over
there!'
Pamela shivered and laid her cheek against his shoulder. But both he
and she were aware of that strange numbness which in the fourth year
of the war has been creeping over all the belligerent nations, so
that horror has lost its first edge, and the minds, whether of
soldiers in the field, or of civilians at home, have become hardened
to facts or ideas which would once have stirred in them wild
ferments of rage and terror.
'Shall we win, this year, Desmond?' said Pamela, as they stood
gazing out into the park, where, above a light silvery mist a young
moon was riding in a clear blue. Not a branch stirred in the great
leafless trees; only an owl's plaintive cry seemed to keep in rhythm
with that sinister murmur on the horizon.
'Win?--this year?' said the boy, with a shrug. 'Don't reckon on it,
Pam. Those Russian fools have dished it all for months!'
'But the Americans will make up?'
Desmond assented eagerly. And in the minds of the English boy and
girl there rose a kind of vague vision of an endless procession of
great ships, on a boundless ocean, carrying men, and men, and more
men--guns, and aeroplanes, and shining piles of shells--bringing the
New World to the help of the Old.
Desmond turned to his sister.
'Look here, Pam, this time next week I shall be in the line. Well, I
daresay I shan't be at the actual front for a week or two--but it
won't be long. We shall want every battery we've got. Now--suppose I
don't come back?'
'Desmond!'
'For goodness' sake, don't be silly, old girl. We've got to look at
it, you know. The death-rate of men of my age' (_men!--Desmond, a
man_!) 'has gone up to about four times what it was before the war.
I saw that in one of the papers this morning. I've only got a
precious small chance. And if I don't come back, I want to know what
you're going to do with yourself.'
'I don't care what happens to me if you don't come back!' said the
girl passionately. She was leaning with folded arms against the side
of the window, the moonlight, or something else, blanching the face
and her fair hair.
Desmond looked at her with a troubled expression. For two or three
years past he had felt a special responsibility towards this
twin-sister of his. Who was there to look after her but he? He saw
that his father never gave her a serious thought, and as to
Aubrey--well, he too seemed to have no room in his mind for
Pam--poor old Pam!
'How are you getting on with Broomie?' he asked suddenly.
'I don't like her!' said Pamela fiercely. 'I shall never like her!'
'Well, that's awkward,'--said the boy slowly, 'because--'
'Because what?'
'Because I believe she means to marry father!'
Pamela laughed angrily.
'Ah, you've found that out too!'
Desmond pulled down the blind again, and they went back to the fire,
sitting on the floor beside it, with their arms round each other, as
they had been used to do as children. And then in a low voice, lest
any ears in the sleeping house should be, after all, on the alert,
he told her what he had seen in the library. He was rather ashamed
of telling her; only there was this queer sense of last words--of
responsibility--for his sister, which excused it.
Pamela listened despondently.
'Perhaps they're engaged already! Well,--I can tell you this--if
father does marry her, she'll rule him, and me--if I give her the
chance--and everybody on the place, with a rod of iron.'
Desmond at first remonstrated. He had been taken aback by the sudden
vision in the library; and Pamela's letters for some time past had
tended to alter his first liking for 'Broomie' into a feeling more
distrustful and uncertain. But, after all, Broomie's record must be
remembered. 'She wouldn't sign that codicil thing--she made father
climb down about the gates--and Sir Henry says she's begun to pull
the estate together like anything, and if father will only let her
alone for a year or two she'll make him a rich man.'
'Oh, I know,' said Pamela gloomily, 'she's paid most of the bills
already. When I go into Fallerton now--everybody--all the tradesmen
are as sweet as sugar.'
'Well, that's something to the good, isn't it? Don't be unfair!'
'I'm not unfair!' cried Pamela. 'Don't you see how she just swallows
up everybody's attention--how nobody else matters when she's
there! How, can you expect _me_ to like that--if she were an
archangel--which she isn't!'
'But has she done anything nasty--anything to bother you?'
'Well, of course, I'm just a cypher when she's there. I'm afraid I
oughtn't to mind--but I do!'
And Pamela, with her hands round her knees, stared into the fire in
bitterness of spirit. She couldn't explain, even to Desmond, that
the inward eye all the time was tormented by two kindred
visions--Arthur in the hall that afternoon, talking war work with
Elizabeth with such warm and eager deference, and Arthur on Holme
Hill, stretched at Elizabeth's feet, and bandying classical chaff
with her. And there was a third, still more poignant, of a future in
which Elizabeth would be always there, the centre of the picture,
mistress of the house, the clever and charming woman, beside whom
girls in their teens had no chance.
She was startled out of these reflections by a remark from Desmond.
'You know, Pam, you ought to get married soon.'
The boy spoke shyly--but gravely and decidedly. Pam thought with a
sudden anguish--'He would never have said that, unless--'
She laid her head on his shoulder, clinging to him.
'I shan't get married, old boy.'
'Oh, that's nonsense! Look here, Pam--you mustn't mind my poking
my nose into things where I've no business. You see, it's
because--Well, I've sometimes thought--punch my head, if you
like!--that you had a fancy for Arthur Chicksands.'
Pamela laughed.
'Well, as he hasn't got any fancy for me, you needn't take that into
your dear old head!'
'Why, he was always very fond of you, Pam.'
'Oh, yes, he liked ragging me when I was a child. I'm not good
enough for him now.'
'What do you mean--not good enough?'
'Not clever enough, you silly old boy. He'll marry somebody much
older than me.'
Desmond ruminated.
'He seemed to be getting on with Broomie this afternoon?'
'Magnificently. He always does. She's his sort. She writes to him.'
'Oh, does she?' The boy's voice was dry and hostile. He began to
understand, or thought he did. Miss Bremerton was not only plotting
to marry his father--had perhaps been plotting for it from the
beginning--but was besides playing an unfair game with Pam--spoiling
Pam's chances--cutting in where she wasn't wanted--grabbing, in
fact. Anger was mounting in him. Why should his father be mopped up
like this?--and Pamela made unhappy?
'I'd jolly well like to stop it all!' he said, under his breath.
'Stop what? You dear, foolish old man! You can't stop it, Dezzy.'
'Well, if she'll only make him happy--!'
'Oh, she'll be quite decent to him,' said Pamela, with a shrug, 'but
she'll despise him!'
'What the deuce do you mean, Pam?'
Whereupon, quite conscious that she was obeying an evil and feverish
impulse, but unable to control it, Pamela went into a long and
passionate justification of what she had said. A number of small
incidents--trifling acts and sayings of Elizabeth's--misinterpreted
and twisted by the girl's jealous pain, were poured into Desmond's
ears.
'All the servants know that she treats father like a baby. She and
Forest manage him in little things--in the house--just as she runs
the estate. For instance, she does just what she likes with the
fruit and the flowers--'
'Why, _you_ ought to do all that, Pam!'
'I tried when I came home from school. Father wouldn't let me do a
thing. But _she_ does just what she pleases. You can hear her and
Forest laughing over it. Oh, it's all right, of course. She sends
things to hospitals every week.'
'That was what you used to want.'
'I do want it--but--'
'You ought to have the doing of it?'
'Oh, I don't know. I'm away all day. But she might at least
_pretend_ to refer to him--or me--sometimes. It's the same in
everything. She twists father round her little finger; and you can
see all the time what she thinks--that there never was such a bad
landlord, or such a miserable, feckless crew as the rest of us,
before she came to put us straight!'
Desmond listened--partly resisting--but finally carried away. By the
time their talk was over he felt that he too hated Elizabeth
Bremerton, and that it was horrid to have to leave Pamela with her.
When they said good-night Pamela threw herself on her bed face
downwards, more wretched than she had ever been--wretched because
Desmond was going, and might be killed, wretched, too, because her
conscience told her that she had spoilt his last evening, and made
him exceedingly unhappy, by a lot of exaggerated complaints. She was
degenerating--she knew it. 'I am a little beast, compared to what I
was when I left school,' she confessed to herself with tears, and
did not know how to get rid of this fiery plague that was eating at
her heart. She seemed to look back to a time--only yesterday!--when
poetry and high ideals, friendships and religion filled her mind;
and now nothing--nothing!--was of any importance, but the look, the
voice, the touch of a man.
The next day, Desmond's last day at home, for he was due in London
by the evening, was gloomy and embarrassed for all concerned.
Elizabeth, pre-occupied and shrinking from her own thoughts, could
not imagine what had happened. She had put off all her engagements
for the day, that she might help in any last arrangements that might
have to be made for Desmond.
But Desmond declined to be helped, not rudely, but with a decision,
which took Elizabeth aback.
'Mayn't I look out some books for you? I have found some more pocket
classics,' she had said to him with a smile, remembering his
application to her in the autumn.
'No, thank you. I shall have no time.' And with that, a prompt
retreat to Pamela and the Den. Elizabeth, indeed, who was all
eagerness to serve him, found herself rebuffed at every turn.
Nor were matters any better with Pamela, who had cried off her
hospital work in order to pack for Desmond. Elizabeth, seeing her
come downstairs with an armful of khaki shirts to be marked, offered
assistance--almost timidly. But Pamela's 'Thank you, but I'd rather
not trouble you--I can do it quite well'--was so frosty that
Elizabeth could only retire--bewildered--to the library, where she
and the Squire gave a morning's work to the catalogue, and never
said a word of farm or timber.
But the Squire worked irritably, finding fault with a number of
small matters, and often wandering away into the house to see what
Desmond was doing. During these intervals Elizabeth would sit, pen
in hand, staring absently into the dripping garden and the park
beaten by a cold rain. The future began to seem to her big with
events and perplexity.
Then with the evening came the boy's leave-taking; full of affection
towards his father and sister, and markedly chilly in the case of
Elizabeth. When the station taxi had driven off, Elizabeth--with
that cold touch of the boy's fingers still tingling on her
hand--turned from the front door to see Pamela disappearing to the
schoolroom, and the Squire fidgeting with an evening paper which the
taxi had brought him from the station.
Elizabeth suddenly noticed the shaking of the paper, over which only
the crest of white hair showed. Too bad of Pamela to have gone off
without a word to her father! Was it sympathy with the Squire, or
resentment on her own account, that made Elizabeth go up to
him?--though at a respectful distance.
'Shall we finish the bit of translation we began this morning, if
you're not busy?' she said gently. It was very rarely now that she
was able to do any classical work after the mornings.
The Squire threw down the newspaper, and strode on before her to the
library without a word. Elizabeth followed. Rain and darkness had
been shut out. The wood fire glowed on the hearth, and its ruddy
light was on the face of the Nikê, and its solemn outstretched
wings. All the apparatus of their common work was ready, the work
that both loved. Elizabeth felt a sudden, passionate drawing towards
this man twenty years older than herself, which seemed to correspond
to the new and smarting sense of alienation from the twins and their
raw, unjust youth. What had been the reason for their behaviour to
her that day?--what had she done? She was conscious of long weeks of
effort, in Pamela's case,--trying to please and win her; and of a
constant tender interest in Desmond, which had never missed an
opportunity of doing or suggesting something he might like--all for
this! She must have offended them she supposed in some way; how,
she could not imagine. But her mood was sore; and, self-controlled
as she was, her pulse raced.
Here, however, she was welcome, she was needed; she could distract
and soothe a bitterness of soul best measured by the Squire's most
unusual taciturnity. No railing at the Government or the war,
not a fling even at the 'd----d pedant, Chicksands!' or 'The
Bubbly-jocks,' as he liked to call the members of the County War
Committee. Elizabeth put a text of Aristophanes--the _Pax_--into his
hands, and drew her table near to him, waiting his pleasure. There
was a lamp behind him which fell on her broad, white brow, her
waiting eyes and hand, and all the friendly intelligence of her
face. The Squire began haltingly, lost his place, almost threw the
book away; but she cheered him on, admired this phrase, delicately
amended that, till the latent passion had gripped him, and he was
soon in full swing, revelling in all the jests and topicalities of
the play, where the strikers and pacifists, the profiteers, the
soldiers and munition workers of two thousand odd years ago, fight
and toil, prate and wrangle and scheme, as eager and as alive as
their descendants of to-day. Soon his high, tempestuous laugh rang
out; Elizabeth's gentler mirth answering. Sometimes there was a
dispute about a word or a rendering; she would put up her own view,
with obstinacy, so that he might have the pleasure of knocking it
down. And all through there was the growing sense of comradeship, of
mutual understanding, which, in their classical work at least, had
been always present for Elizabeth, since her first acquaintance with
her strange employer.
When she rose, reluctantly, at the sound of the dressing-bell, the
Squire paced up and down while she put her books and papers away.
Then as she was going, he turned abruptly--
'I told Forest to order the _Times_--will you see he does it?'
'Certainly.'
'I loathe all newspapers,' he said sombrely. 'If we must go to the
devil, I don't want to know too much about it. But still--'
She waited a moment, but as nothing more came she was leaving the
room, when he added--
'And don't forget the timber business to-morrow afternoon. Tell Dell
to meet us in Cross Wood.'
* * * * *
When she had gone, the Squire still continued pacing, absorbed
in meeting the attack of new and strange ideas. He had
always been a man with a singularly small reflective gift.
Self-examination--introspection of any sort--were odious to him. He
lived on stimulus from outside, attracted or repelled, amused or
interested, bored or angry, as the succession of events or impressions
might dictate. To collect beautiful things was a passion with him, and
he was proud of the natural taste and instinct, which generally led
him right. But for 'aesthetics'--the philosophy of art--he had nothing
but contempt. The volatile, restless mind escaped at once from the
concentration asked of it; and fell back on what the Buddhist calls
'Maia,' the gay and changing appearances of things, which were all he
wanted. And it was because the war had interfered with this pleasant
and perpetual challenge to the senses of the outer world, because
it forced a man back on general ideas that he did not want to
consider--God, Country, Citizenship--that the Squire had hated the
war.
But this woman who had become an inmate of his house, while she
ministered to all the tastes that the Squire had built up as a
screen between himself and either the tragic facts of contemporary
life, or any troublesome philosophizing about them, was yet
gradually, imperceptibly, drawing the screen aside. Her humanity was
developing the feeble shoots of sympathy and conscience in himself.
What she felt, he was beginning to feel; and when she hated anything
he must at least uncomfortably consider why.
But all this she did and achieved through her mere fitness and
delightfulness as a companion. He had never imagined that life would
bring him anybody--least of all a woman--who would both give him so
much, and save him so much. Selfish, exacting, irritable--he knew
very well that he was all three. But it had not prevented this
capable, kind, clever creature from devoting herself to him, from
doing her utmost, not only to save his estate and his income, but to
make his life once more agreeable to him, in spite of the war and
all the rancour and resentments it had stirred up in him.
How patient she had been with these last! He was actually beginning
to be ashamed of some of them. And now to-night--what made her come
and give him the extra pleasure of her company these two hours?
Sympathy, he supposed, about Desmond.
Well, he was grateful; and for the first time his heart reached out
for pity--almost humbled itself--accepted the human lot. If Desmond
were killed, he would never choose to go on living. Did she know
that? Was it because she guessed at the feelings he had always done
his best to hide that she had been so good to him that evening?
What as to that love-story of hers--her family?--her brother in
Mesopotamia? He began to feel a hundred curiosities about her, and a
strong wish to make life easy for her, as she had been making it
easy for him. But she was excessively proud and scrupulous--that he
had long since found out. No use offering to double her salary, now
that she had saved him all this money! His first advance in that
direction had merely offended her. The Squire thought vaguely of the
brother--no doubt a young lieutenant. Could interest be made for
him?--with some of the bigwigs. Then his--very intermittent--sense
of humour asserted itself. He to make interest with anybody--for
anybody--in connection with the war! He, who had broken with every
soldier-friend he ever had, because of his opinions about the
war!--and was anathema throughout the country for the same reason.
Like all members of old families in this country he had a number of
aristocratic and wealthy kinsfolk, the result of Mannering marriages
in the past. But he had never cared for any of them, except to a
mild degree for his sister, Lady Cassiobury, who was ten years older
than himself, and still paid long visits to Mannering, which bored
him hugely. On the last occasion, he was quite aware that he had
behaved badly, and was now in her black-books.
No--there was nothing to be done, except to let this wonderful woman
have her own way! If she wanted to cut down the woods, let her!--if
she wanted to amuse herself by rebuilding the village, and could
find the money out of the estate, let her!--it would occupy her,
attach her to the place, and do him no harm.
Yes, attach her to the place; bind her! hold her!--that was what he
wanted. Otherwise, how hideously uncertain it all was! She might go
at any time. Her mother might be ill--old ladies have a way of being
ill. Her brother might be wounded--or killed. Either of those events
would carry her off--out of his ken. But if she were engaged deeply
enough in the estate affairs she would surely come back. He knew
her!--she hated to leave things unfinished. He was eager now to heap
all kinds of responsibilities upon her. He would be meek and
pliable; he would put no sort of obstacles in her way. She would
have no excuse for giving him notice again. He would put up with all
her silly Jingoism--if only she would stay!
But at this point the Squire suddenly pulled up short in his pacing
and excitedly asked himself the question, which half the people
about him were already beginning to ask.
'Why shouldn't I marry her?'
He stood transfixed--the colour rising in his thin cheeks.
Hitherto the notion, if it had ever knocked at the outer door of the
brain, had been chased away with mockery. And he had no sooner
admitted it now than he drove it out again. He was simply afraid of
it--in terror lest any suspicion of it should reach Elizabeth. Her
loyalty, her single-mindedness, her freedom from the smallest taint
of intrigue--he would have answered for them with all he possessed.
If, for a moment, she chose to think that he had misinterpreted her
kindness, her services in any vile and vulgar way, why, he might
lose her on the instant! Let him walk warily--do nothing at least to
destroy the friend in her, before he grasped at anything more.
Besides, how could she put up with him? 'I am the dried husk of a
man!' thought the Squire, with vehemence. 'I couldn't learn her ways
now, nor she mine. No; let us be as we are--only more so!'
But he was shaken through and through; first by that vanishing of
his boy into the furnace of the war, which had brought him at last
within the grip of the common grief, the common fear, and now by
this strange thought which had invaded him.
* * * * *
After dinner, Elizabeth, who was rather pale, but as cheerful and
self-possessed as usual, put Mrs. Gaddesden's knitting to rights at
least three times, and held the wool for that lady to wind till her
arm ached. Then Mrs. Gaddesden retired to bed; the Squire, who with
only occasional mutterings and mumblings had been deep in
Elizabeth's copy of the _Times_, which she had at last ventured to
produce in public, went off to the library, and Elizabeth and Pamela
were left in the hall alone.
Elizabeth lingered over the fire; while Pamela wondered impatiently
why she did not go to her office work as she generally did about
nine o'clock. Pamela's mood was more thorny than ever. Had she not
seen a letter in Elizabeth's handwriting lying that very afternoon
on the hall-table for post--addressed to Captain Chicksands, D.S.O.,
War Office, Whitehall? Common sense told her that it probably
contained nothing but an answer to some questions Arthur had put to
the Squire's 'business secretary' as to the amount of ash in the
Squire's woods--Arthur's Intelligence appointment having something
to do with the Air Board. But the mere fact that Elizabeth should be
writing to him stirred intolerable resentment in the girl's
passionate heart. She knew very well that it was foolish,
unreasonable, but could no more help it than a love-smitten maiden
of old Sicily. It was her hour of possession, and she was struggling
with it blindly.
And Elizabeth, the shrewd and clever Elizabeth, saw nothing, and
knew nothing. If she had ever for a passing moment suspected the
possibility of 'an affair' between Arthur Chicksands and Pamela, she
had ceased to think of it. The eager projects with which her own
thoughts were teeming, had driven out the ordinary preoccupations of
womankind. Derelict farms, the food-production of the county,
timber, village reconstruction, war-work of various kinds, what time
was there left?--what room?--in a mind wrestling with a hundred new
experiences, for the guessing of a girl's riddle?
Yet all the same she remained her just and kindly self. She was
troubled--much troubled--by the twins' behaviour. She must somehow
get to the bottom of it.
So that when only she and Pamela were left in the hall she went up
to the girl, not without agitation.
'Pamela--won't you tell me?--have I done anything to offend you and
Desmond?'
She spoke very quietly, but her tone showed her wounded. Pamela
started and looked up.
'I don't know what you mean,' she said coldly. 'Did you think we had
been rude to you?'
It was the first hostile word they had ever exchanged.
Elizabeth grew pale.
'I didn't say anything about your being rude. I asked you if you
were cross with me.'
'Oh--cross!' said Pamela, suddenly conscious of a suffocating
excitement. 'What's the good of being cross? It's you who are
mistress here.'
Elizabeth fell back a step in dismay.
'I do think you ought to explain,' she said after a moment. 'If I
had done anything you didn't like--anything you thought unkind, I
should be very very sorry.'
Pamela rose from her seat. Elizabeth's tone seemed to her pure
hypocrisy. All the bitter, poisonous stuff she had poured out to
Desmond the night before was let loose again. Stammering and
panting, she broke into the vaguest and falsest accusations.
She was ignored--she was a nobody in her own home--everybody knew
it and talked of it. She wasn't jealous--oh no!--she was simply
miserable! 'Oh, I daresay you can no more help it than I can. You,
of course, are twenty times more use here than I am. I don't
dispute that. But I am the daughter of the house after all, and it
is a little hard to be so shelved--so absolutely put in the
background!--as I am--'
'Don't I consult you whenever I can? haven't I done my best to--'
interrupted Elizabeth, only to be interrupted in her turn.
--'to persuade father to let me do things? Yes, that's just
it!--_you_ persuade father, you manage everything. It's just that
that's intolerable!'
And flushed with passion, extraordinarily handsome, Pamela stood
tremulously silent, her eyes fixed on Elizabeth. Elizabeth, too, was
silent for a moment. Then she said with steady emphasis:
'Of course there can only be one end to this. I can't possibly stay
here.'
'Oh, very well, go!' cried Pamela. 'Go, and tell father that I've
made you. But if you do, neither you nor he will see me again for a
good while.'
'What do you mean?'
'What I say. If you suppose that _I'm_ going to stay on here to bear
the brunt of father's temper after he knows that I've made you throw
up, you're entirely mistaken.'
'Then what do you propose?'
'I don't know what I propose,' said Pamela, shaking from head to
foot, 'but if you say a word to father about it I shall simply
disappear. I shall be able to earn my own living somehow.'
The two confronted each other.
'And you really think I can go on after this as if nothing had
happened?' said Elizabeth, in a low voice.
Pangs of remorse were seizing on Pamela, but she stifled them.
'There's a way out!' she said presently, her colour coming and
going. 'I'll go and stay with Margaret in town for a bit. Why should
there be any fuss? She's asked me often to help with her
war-workroom and the canteen. Father won't mind. He doesn't care in
the least what I do! And nobody will think it a bit odd--if you and
I don't talk.'
Elizabeth turned away. The touch of scorn in her bearing was not
lost on Pamela.
'And if I refuse to stay on, without saying or doing anything--to
put myself right--you threaten to run away?'
'I do--I mean it,' said Pamela firmly. She had not only hardened
again under the sting of that contempt she detected in Elizabeth,
but there was rising up in her a sudden and rapturous vision of
London:--Arthur at the War Office--herself on open ground--no longer
interfered with and over-shadowed. He would come to see her--take
her out, perhaps, sometimes to an exhibition, or for a walk. The
suggestion of going to Margaret had been made on the spur of the
moment without after-thought. She was now wedded to it, divining in
it a hundred possibilities.
At the same moment she became more cautious, and more ashamed of
herself. It would be better to apologize. But before she could speak
Elizabeth said:
'Does Desmond agree with what you have been saying?'
Pamela staring at her adversary was a little frightened. She rushed
into a falsehood.
'Desmond knows nothing about it! I don't want him dragged in.'
Elizabeth's eyes, with their bitter, wounded look; seemed to search
the girl's inmost mind. Then she moved away.
'We had better go to bed. We shall both want to think it over.
Good-night.'
And from the darkness of the hall, where fire and lamp were dying,
Pamela half spell-bound, watched the tall figure of Elizabeth slowly
mounting the broad staircase at the further end, the candle-light
flickering on her bright hair, and on a bunch of snowdrops in her
breast.
Then, for an hour, while the house sank into silence, Pamela sat
crouched and shivering by the only log left in the grate. 'A little
while ago,' she was thinking miserably, 'I had good feelings and
ideas--I never hated anybody. I never told lies. I suppose--I shall
get worse and worse.'
And when she had gone wearily to bed, it was to cry herself to
sleep.
The following morning, an urgent telegram from her younger sister
recalled Elizabeth Bremerton to London, where her mother's invalid
condition had suddenly taken a disastrous turn for the worse.