BOOK III CONNIE September, 1915—February, 1916 (continued 2)

By this time she did not know whether she was running to save her own life or her sister's. The black arms of the trees swept over her, their wild heads tossing, tangling the vagrant stars. Their branches creaked; their twisted fingers snatched at her, caught at her hair and scratched her face, only to swing back again with mocking lightness. The trees terrified her. At any minute they must come down upon her. She heard the sharp splintering of the wood; the rush of branches like a mighty sea; the vast arms that embraced her, dragging her down, down as they fell faster, faster and the great weight overwhelmed her.

There she would lie crushed and bleeding on the hill-side, and Connie would lie deep below the swirling waters of the Fallow.

She dared not risk the trees. She scurried towards the centre of the field, stumbling blindly among the turnips. Twice she struck her foot against them, falling and recovering herself.

Her breath came now in painful sobs. Across her chest lay a sharp bar of iron that hurt her as she breathed. The wind through her silk blouse whipped her shoulders.

Oh, she would never find her way. Why hadn't she brought a lantern? Why hadn't she told the others? What madness sent her alone, running wildly down these dreadful fields? And when she reached the river, if Connie were not there, what could she do!

A rope, stretched straight across her way, nearly flung her down again. Panting, she felt along it. A rough net—a net. Her mind, unaccustomed to the ways of farming, refused to register its use. She forced it down with both her hands and stepped across it.

As she paused, it seemed as though again she heard those footsteps following; but perhaps they only were the beats of her own heart. She started forward.

A worse nightmare than ever laid hold upon her. She was surrounded by a moving horror. Soft formless things pushed up against her knees, her waist. Each way she stumbled, they bore down upon her. The starlight showed her just a dim, pale sea heaving waist-high all round her, before the wild clouds swept across the one patch of clear sky and left her blind with panic and the dark.

She could bear no more. Perils of darkness, perils of tempest, perils of bulls and wild living things she had withstood. Even the peril of Ben's frenzied face and uplifted hand had not appalled her. But this heaving horror engulfed her. She must fall.

She put out one hand and touched rough, soft wool; a familiar cry rang out beside her, "Baa-a-ah!" another followed. Echo followed echo across the sheepfold. She turned and pushed her way out from among the clustering flock, regaining the assurance of the road. The trees might swoop above her. Her feet might slip beneath her, but the road was sure. On and on she ran, though now she knew no longer the object of her running. Through one gate, then another, then another, and the woods closed down upon her. The path grew steeper. A light rain blew in her face like wave-flung spray. She did not notice it. The bushes caught at her. The branches tore her hair. Then, suddenly, quite close beside her, she heard the rushing of the river.

She remembered why she had come, and stood quite still to listen.

"Connie!" she shouted. "Connie! Connie! Connie!"

Parallel with the river ran a narrow path. It wound up Fallowdale for several miles until it crossed the Pilgrim's Bridge at Barwood. Up this path Muriel ran, the tangled woods on her left hand, the river on her right. Without a gleam the water swirled beside her, now dashing angrily against the stones, now sliding deep and dark between the banks.

"Connie! Connie! Connie!" called Muriel. The wind snatched at her futile little voice. The river drowned it. The high trees mocked her, clashing their long arms together.

"Connie! Connie!" she sobbed. The pain in her bruised ankle throbbed unceasingly. Her hands were torn. Her knees hurt. She felt forlorn and utterly defeated.

"Connie! Connie!"

Along the path before her, something moved.

"Connie!"

The figure stopped. It hesitated, then started forward. A twig snapped in the darkness. Then, though the river ran silently here the noise of it rose like a flood, thundering in her ears.

"Connie, darling! Stop! I want to tell you something."

She dared not run too quickly. A false step, and she might feel those ice-cold waters close above her head. If she delayed, though, she might hear the splash of Connie's final plunge.

"Oh, Connie, please don't go so fast. I can't keep up. Please stop."

In the dark, Connie turned to face her.

"Muriel—what do you want? Why have you come?" With a sudden sharp anguish, "Have you got my letter?"

"Your letter? Your letter? No. Ben's got your letter."

"Ben? Of course he has! Of course. Oh, isn't that like you, Muriel! You come down here to me, but you let Ben have the letter! I might have known. Here I've been telling myself that perhaps you'd find it and not say anything and just come down here, and now—I might have known!"

"But Ben found it first. What could I do?"

"Of course he did. He would. Oh, now for Heaven's sake go home. I'm sick of you. Can't you leave me alone just for a minute? What do you want? Why did you follow me? Go back. Go back, I tell you."

"No, no. I can't leave you here. You mustn't—you—you'll make yourself ill."

"Ill? Shall I?"

Muriel dared not move. If she advanced one step she feared lest Connie, mad with recklessness, should plunge into that dreadful river. And if Connie did jump in, what could she do? Connie was heavy. The river was so deep, and Muriel could not swim. She became dazed with panic.

"Connie, dear. Connie, come home. It's terrible for you out here in the dark. Come back with me. It's all right. I won't leave you."

"If you come a step nearer," cried Connie's furious voice, "I shall jump straight into the river. So there!"

Suddenly the absurdity of the situation struck Muriel. Here she was. Here was Connie. If Connie chose to drown herself, Muriel was completely powerless to stop her, because she was so small and Connie so much stronger.

At the realization of her impotence, Muriel's self-control gave way. She flung up her head and laughed, peal after peal of helpless laughter.

It was the last sound that Connie had expected.

"What's the matter? Are you mad? That's right then, laugh away! I suppose that you think it's funny that I should have made a mess of my whole life. I can be in hell if I like, and all that you can do is to stand there and laugh. I suppose that you read Eric's letter and saw that he—that he would have married me—Eric. Eric."

Muriel stopped laughing and came forward, laying her small hand on her sister's arm. Connie seemed to be unaware that anyone was touching her.

"Oh, it's damned funny, isn't it? I wonder that I don't laugh myself. You never thought at Marshington that your respected sister was anyone's mistress, did you? Only once, I tell you. I thought that he would marry me. I'd heard they would. I was fed up, and at least it was worth trying. It was that little fiend Alice who ruined me. Of course she liked him, but she kidded us that it was Ben she cared about. Ben. Ben! Come to think about it, we might ha' known that she was fooling us. Who'd care for Ben, with his great gawky body, Ben the big soft idiot! I ask you! That's my husband, Muriel. Good joke, isn't it? I swore to love, honour and obey that thing, because Alice told me Eric had married Cissie Bradfield and showed me a newspaper cutting, and I was green enough to believe her. Oh, she was clever. My God, she was clever. I'd just been home on leave, you know, that time we met Delia on Kingsport Station. I was happy then. I thought he cared. Then I came back here and Alice told me—showed me the cutting. He was just going to Mespot too. I wrote. He never answered." She stopped, choking.

"Never mind that now, Connie, dear," Muriel said timidly. "Come back with me. You'll get so wet."

Connie shook off her hand and went on speaking. It was as though, having decided to tell the truth at last, she could not stop.

"If I'd been cheap with one, I'd be cheap with all. There'd be no end to my cheapness. If Eric had had me and didn't want me, then Ben, who wanted me, should have me. Oh, I was wild, I didn't care. I didn't care what happened. Muriel, you don't know. You'd never been like that, stuck there in Marshington, longing to get away, every one round you getting married. It wasn't as if I hadn't tried other things. I wanted to chicken farm; I wanted to go away and do just anything. But Mother wouldn't let me. It was just men, men, men, and make a good match."

She shivered violently. The rain was now sweeping in great gusts along the valley. It splashed from the bare branches on to their heads. Slowly they began to walk along the path.

"Well—I didn't make a good match. Look at Godfrey Neale. When I was a kid I used to think him wonderful. Then Hugh McKissack. Mother made me think I liked him and that he would marry me. Look how he fooled us both. Then Eric came——"

Connie's voice mingled with the rushing of the river and the rustling rain among the trees. She lifted her head and spoke into the darkness, taking no heed of Muriel.

"He wasn't much of a fellow perhaps, in lots of ways, but he was a jolly sight better than lots of the men we used to meet. And I wanted so much to be married. He said his father wouldn't let him marry till he'd become a proper chartered accountant. He was still articled or something when I met him that night at the Kingsport dance. Hugh McKissack had just turned me down. Oh, I was desperate. I flirted with him. He said I was a sport. We—we got on. Oh, you won't understand. When I went to stay with Betty Taylor at York, I met him again. I went there so that I could meet him. Chase him? Who'd taught me to chase men? Of course I did. Don't all women? Hadn't mother? Then he said I didn't care for him. I wasn't going to show him at first, so he said 'Prove it.' I—you don't know. I thought he'd slip away just like the rest of them. I said I'd prove it. We went away to Scarshaven together for three days, before I went to Buxton to the Marshalls. You thought I was there, and nobody found out. I thought he'd marry me. If anything went wrong, he said he'd see me through. There was a time, just once, on Scarshaven station when he came to meet me, I thought I couldn't do it. Then he smiled. Oh, you—you—you don't know what it's like to love a man! I couldn't turn him down."

She stopped and clung to Muriel, who could only hold her tightly, murmuring silly words of comfort, neither shocked nor grieved, but gently pitiful. "Poor Connie. Oh, poor Connie!"

"Then the war came. He was sent up to Follerwick. I stuck it at home for a bit. I tried once to get through to see him, but I couldn't arrange it easily. I saw that if I stayed at home I never should get away without being found out. Then he told me about Thraile. The Todds were advertising for land-girls. I'd always liked outdoor things, and I was mad to come. You know the row we had at home. Then Mother heard that the Setons were doing land-work. How I blessed those girls. So she gave me her blessing too and off I went. Oh, but I was happy. You don't know. I'd never been happy like that before. He was at Follerwick and I at Thraile. We used to go for concerts and things, and I'd meet him and go off for long walks on the moors. We didn't do anything that you'd call bad. Somehow when it was so easy, we did not want to in the same way. We were like kids. We'd race up and down hill hand in hand. He'd come and sit sometimes on the old sheep trough when I was cleaning turnips and we'd talk. It was all as easy as the beasts and flowers and things. I dun'no. We were just great pals. We didn't talk of marriage or anything. That didn't matter. Then I came on leave." Her voice hardened. "When I got back that Alice told me he'd had to go off suddenly to Aldershot. He didn't write—or, if he did, she got hold of the letters. Possibly he didn't write. He wasn't the pen-scratching kind. Then the news of his wedding came, and the newspaper cutting.

"Oh, I think I went mad. I do really. You see—I'd been fooled so often. I wanted to hurt every one, myself most of all. And Ben was always hanging round. I hadn't noticed him while Eric was there. But after—after I heard about Cissie I used to tease Ben, just to spite him and myself. I said he wasn't a man. I—Oh, I led him on. He was such a great, green, religious baby, terrified of his father. Then I made him—do it."

Her hands clutched at her sister's arm. Her dragging step moved onward, and her toneless voice talked on and on, taking a bitter satisfaction in the telling.

"When I found out that I was going to have a baby, I was scared. I told you that they turned me out. They didn't. I ran away. Father found that out after he came down to Thraile that day. Really, he was awfully decent to me. He seemed to understand. But at first the Todds were awful. That terrible old man. Only Ben was decent. I believe he was fond of me. Funny, wasn't it? He thought he'd sinned black sin for me, and made me sin, and he must make it up to me. And then, while I was waiting for the wedding, that was a queer time. I used to pretend that it was Eric I was going to marry. Honest I did. I quite enjoyed it. Even when we got here, married, it might not have been so bad. Do you know," she said reflectively, "I believe that if I'd never known Eric I'd have been content with Ben. He's a dud of course, but he'd do anything for me. It's nice to have someone who'd sell their souls for you, until they think they've sold it. That was just it. Old William Todd would never let Ben alone. He was always on at him. If we could have gone away together. . . . Well, I used to think we would go and get a farm and settle down. I like children too. Then—to-day." It was Connie's turn to laugh now.

"I say, if there's a God, mustn't he have a jolly time laughing over the things that come too late? Here's a priceless joke now—me married to Ben, and a kid coming, and Eric ready to marry me when he comes home. Ben's child! Ben's child! And it might have been Eric's!" The laughter turned again to choking sobs. Breaking suddenly from Muriel's arms, Connie collapsed on the bank and crouched there, crying softly.

"I meant to kill myself. I knew I might funk it though. I always do. I put that letter where Ben would see it and know what had happened. So I could never go back to him. I thought I'd settle it for good and all. And I'd hurt Ben too. He'd been so stupid. The more beastly I was to him, the more patient he was with me. Rather like you, Muriel. Oh, you patient people! I bet you're responsible for half the suicides that happen. He was so proud to think I'd marry him too! He—me!"

Muriel knelt beside her on the wet stones. "Get up, Connie. You'll be ill. Get up. It's so wet."

That was all she could say, silly futile things.

"Ill? Oh, Muriel, you are a fool. Don't you see, I can't go back? I can't go anywhere. Oh, my God, I haven't got the pluck to kill myself, and there's nowhere in the world for me to live! You're a beauty, you are. You always turn up when it's too late to help. What shall I do? I don't want to die."

"We'll go away together. Listen. Listen. I'll make Father let us have some money. He's fond of you. If Ben turns you out, he'll pay. I can get work now in war-time too. We'll both go away. We'll—Oh, what's that?"

A light, swinging between the trees, gleamed suddenly round the angle of the rocks. A yellow splash of lantern light moved along the path. Through the rain came the sound of running footsteps.

"Who's that? Who's that?"

Her voice was sharp with fear.

"Is that Muriel?"

Connie's hand gripped her like a vice. Connie screamed in sudden terror.

"Muriel, it's Ben. Don't let him hurt me! Don't!"

Muriel stood up. "Ben, what do you want?"

The lantern swayed and stopped. In that moment Muriel thought that Ben had come to kill his wife.

"Is Connie there?"

"Yes." Connie's voice was calm now.

"Ben, you shan't hurt her," cried Muriel.

"I shan't hurt her." She could hear that he too was now calm. The voice that spoke from the darkness was a man's voice. "Connie, I want to ask you something."

"Well?" Still she was defiant. "What do you want?"

"When did you last see—yon—yon fellow?"

"Eric Fennington?"

"Ay."

"In the summer. Before I went on leave, but——"

"I thowt so. You fooled me properly, didn't you?"

"But——" Connie rose slowly to her feet. She stood now facing her husband. He raised the lantern and flashed it full upon her. "Ben," she said.

"Have ye anything to say? Ye laughed an' mocked at me. Ye treated me like a boy without pride, or honour. Then, when yon fellow let ye down, you found that I was man enough to give his child my name." He spoke now without bitterness. His steady, even voice was strange to them. They stood before him, afraid of his new dignity. Then Connie said:

"Ben, that's not true."

"Eh?"

"I—I saw Eric in the summer, but it was—in March when we—when we went together. The only time, I swear."

"And when is the child coming?"

"April."

"Is yon true, Muriel?"

"Yes."

"How many lovers did yer have before this—officer fellow?"

"Eric, only Eric."

"Is yon true, Muriel?"

"Yes, Ben, I am sure of it."

They waited, while in the darkness Ben received back his lost honour. When he spoke again it was with a shy confidence.

"Oh, well, I reckon ye'd better come home out o' t'wet, Connie. I wanted ye to kill yourself at first, and then I thought mebbe I'd better let you speak for yourself first. But if yon's false, what you've told me——"

"It's not."

He sighed wearily. "Oh, well, best come home, Connie."

"Do—do the others know?"

"Nay. An' they won't. This is our affair. T'letter's in my pocket. I'll burn it an' fake some tale. Coom on, Connie. I——" He had forgotten Muriel. They were alone together in a world new made.

"I want my child," said Ben.

They turned; he put his hand on her arm, and they went up the path together.

Muriel stood alone beside the river; then she too moved forward, following the lantern's light.

XXXII

The situation having been lifted again out of Muriel's hands, she did not for some time contest the way in which it was being handled. For the space of one evening, Ben seemed to have attained to manhood. So much the better for Ben. So much the better for Connie. So much the worse perhaps for Muriel, who was again left with no one in life having great need of her. Directly Connie was better, Muriel meant to go home. For Connie, not unnaturally, was ill. The evening's escapade had resulted in a severe chill, caught, she explained, because while going for a walk to cure her headache, she had fallen and wrenched her ankle, and lain in the rain until Ben and Muriel found her.

Well, she would soon be better. It never occurred to Muriel to protest against the standard of Thraile nursing. She followed Mrs. Todd about the chill, dark bedroom, acquiescing in suggested remedies. After all, what else could one do in someone else's house? It was nobody's fault that the fire in Connie's bedroom smoked, or that Dr. Merryweather was old-fashioned. Besides, she herself had a sore throat, and a bruised knee, and a weary battered spirit. Events must take their course. The whole household being incalculable and detached from sane life as she knew it, Muriel could not bring herself to think it real at all. She brushed her own torn skirt and Connie's, and carried trays upstairs for Mrs. Todd, who, with three invalids and the large family to manage, still remained imperturbably cheerful. Then, somehow, quite without Muriel realizing their importance, several things happened very quickly; the doctor's second visit; Ben driving off into the rain to Follerwick; her mother's arrival by the evening train.

Muriel stood in the room once shared by Alice, Gert and Polly, fingering silver jars upon the roughly stained dressing-table, and wondering how her mother always contrived to carry an atmosphere of Marshington drawing-rooms into the most incongruous surroundings.

"I can't understand it. I can't understand it," repeated Mrs. Hammond, methodically unwrapping her slippers from her linen shoe bags. "You say that she went out in the rain . . ."

"It wasn't raining when she went out," explained Muriel for the second time. "It began to rain later—after she had fallen."

"I can't help thinking, dear, that there was some grave irresponsibility. Knowing how careless she is, you never ought to have let her go out alone. It never should have happened—and then—since, Muriel, why didn't you see that a second opinion was called in?"

"We didn't think that she was so ill.—Dr. Merryweather——"

"Oh, Dr. Merryweather! A North Riding country practitioner—really, Muriel. But of course, dear, you never had any initiative, had you? Well, it may be all right now."

With gentle efficiency, Mrs. Hammond took control of the situation. Never had her conduct been more completely admirable. She had found her younger daughter seriously ill with pneumonia, her elder daughter in a strange condition of nervous paralysis, an impossibly inconvenient house, and a family complicated by the most uncomfortable relationships. Almost at once she made her influence felt. Muriel found herself shrinking into the shadows. She never remembered afterwards how she passed her time in that house grown hushed with concentrated anxiety. Once she remembered meeting Ben upon the landing. His face was drawn and grey. She remembered his long feet in their drab worsted stockings and the silly appeal in his light grey-blue eyes.

"Muriel," he had said in a hoarse whisper, "she ain't going to die, is she?"

"No, of course she isn't," Muriel answered irritably. How could she die, now that everything had just been put right? Of course she wasn't going to die!

He twisted the smooth knob at the top of the staircase. "She mustn't die," he whispered again. "I couldn't stand that, I tell you I couldn't." He cast a sidelong glance down stairs towards the passage where the door of the front parlour stood open. "Father says that it'll be the judgment of God upon our wickedness if she does die."

"What does he know about it? She won't die."

"I can't bear it," he repeated, his mouth agape, his eyes that nature had intended to be meek and kind staring ahead with a sad, unnatural concentration. "I couldn't abide to think of her dying in her sin."

"You don't think that at all. She's not in sin—any more than I am. You're talking nonsense. She's going to get well. And in April your baby will be born. And Mr. Todd will let you both go off to Fallowdale." She nodded at him reassuringly, as one nods to a child, and then went upon her quiet, mouse-like duties.

Three more days passed. A nurse had come from Hardrascliffe. Mrs. Hammond sat up half the night, and Muriel the other half. Mrs. Hammond wore a white apron over her pretty dresses. Her cool fingers had been denuded of their rings, but their little pink nails shone like jewels. The farm girls all had lost their heads and hearts to her. They wondered how on earth a dowdy little thing like Muriel, and a big jolly girl like Connie, could have had such a duck of a mother. Mrs. Todd treated her with cheerful and unimpressionable independence. Muriel followed her submissively, like a scolded child, knowing herself to be in disgrace, and yet never hearing a word of the reproach that she knew her mother felt.

Connie, she found inarticulate and pathetic, only occasionally cross and difficult. Most of the time she seemed to be uncannily obedient.

Once in the early morning, when Muriel was so sleepy that she had to hold her head right forward, so that it would not fall back against her chair, Connie's queer, grating whisper roused her.

"Mu——"

"Yes."

"It would be a queer thing if I was to die after all—wouldn't it?"

"Don't be silly. You aren't going to die."

"I don't want to. I want to have the baby. I'd like to have a house of my own, and a little Ford car, so that Ben and I could run in to Hardrascliffe for week-ends."

"Of course you will."

"Don't let me die, Mu."

"There's no question of your dying."

But she did not get better quickly. One night her temperature raced up, and she began to talk dangerous nonsense about Eric, while Muriel endeavoured to keep her mother from the room, and Mrs. Hammond, with heroic fortitude, stayed in and quietly controlled the situation. Then there was a miserable early morning when the oxygen cylinders did not arrive from Hardrascliffe; and, when the light crept through the curtains, Muriel stood in dry-eyed wonder while Ben buried his head in Connie's counterpane and wept loudly with an illogical wholeheartedness.

It was most terrible to see men cry. Muriel wondered whether her father would cry when he came. Anything might happen in a world where Connie had been allowed to die. A sense of baffled impotence seized Muriel. Connie had been preserved so miraculously through two crises—God could not really have let her die.

She wandered round the silent house, very weary but yet more bored, wishing that she could even join the nurse's secret ministration up in Connie's bedroom, rather than have this desolating feeling of no purpose. Then Mrs. Todd, with practical kindness, set her to wash up breakfast plates, with a significant nod to Gertie—"Muriel is going to be taken bad next if we don't look out." And afterwards Mrs. Hammond, with a dignity of self-control that astonished every one but Muriel, called her upstairs and gave her letters to write, and began to discuss details of the funeral.

Mr. Hammond was in London. He could not reach Thraile until Tuesday morning, even by travelling all night. Mrs. Hammond therefore had to make her own arrangements—the funeral to be at Follerwick, the letters to all relations, the notices to the Yorkshire papers.

"Have you been to see Mr. Todd, since——?" asked Mrs. Hammond, delicately pressing down the flap of an envelope.

"No, Mother, why?"

"Well, dear. I do think that one of us ought to go to him. Just to show that we—that, well, I do think that we ought. And I don't feel——" Bravely she pushed aside her tears with a small handkerchief.

Muriel walked slowly down the stairs. The little parlour was flooded with afternoon sunlight. Through the uncurtained window, Muriel could see the moors frozen to hard, black beauty, cold as stone beneath the cold, clear light.

William Todd was lying by the window. Ben, a forlorn and uncouth figure in his ill-fitting black clothes, sat on the chair beside him, his large red hands upon his knee.

Muriel came into the room quietly and shut the door. She wished that she knew what was the right thing to say.

"I am very sorry, Mr. Todd," she said at last, feeling that somehow it was what he should have said to her.

"You are sorry. Your sister is dead. My son tells me that she did not die unrepentant. I am glad. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. When men shall say Peace, and all things are safe, then shall sudden destruction come upon them, as sorrow came upon a woman travailing with child, and they shall not escape."

"No," answered Muriel, "I suppose not." But she thought all this to be irrelevant. She felt sorry for Ben, who sat there with bent, dumb bewilderment, but she did not know what to say. She wanted to tell him that she was sorry that the baby for whose sake he had forgiven Connie had never been born. She only said: "Ben has been splendid, Mr. Todd, all through her illness. I am sure that you will understand far more than I—— Do be—please be—nice to him."

The cripple's bright eyes seemed to pierce her brain.

"Shall not the Lord deal justly with his own? You tried to save your sister from the punishment of man; but a greater than man had judged before you. But, thank God, her death has not been quite unfruitful. My son, my son has even seen the error of his ways."

William Todd turned his face to the young man. A queer twisted tenderness broke for a minute the clear lines of his face. Then it hardened again. His son sat without movement, his eyes upon the carpet.

"Ay. That's so," he murmured dully.

The old lady by the fire nodded and smiled at Muriel, nibbling a pink sweet. She was happy because she had outlived her grandson's wife.

Ben followed Muriel from the room.

"How much does your father know?" asked Muriel.

"Nay. I don't know. He's said nowt but what he knew before. But he is right. The destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the Lord shall be consumed. It was for the ungodliness o' my soul, he says, the Lord took my wife and my child."

He raised his head with a smile of ghastly pride, as though consoled by the Lord's impressive punishment of his offence.

"Ben!" cried Muriel, no longer sorry. "You don't really think like that. You can't think like that." Connie and miserable sinners simply could not live together in the same thought. Connie was a person, intensely alive, wilful and foolish, made for enjoyment and companionship. She was not an instrument of God sent for the punishment of any man's misdeeds.

Ben stared at her foolishly. Then without a word he passed her by and stumbled up the stairs.

Next morning Mr. Hammond came. He saw Muriel in the hall.

"Where's Rachel?" he asked.

"Upstairs, Father. I'll show you."

He followed her, stepping softly up the winding stair. Mrs. Hammond stood in the doorway. On her face was an expression of relief, anxiety, tenderness. Now that he had come, she wanted nothing more.

Muriel watched her father enfold her mother in his great arms. She, the imperturbable, the gently adamant, gave herself up to his rough mastery, and found rest there. Neither of them noticed Muriel.

"There, there, little woman," he said softly, stroking her bowed silver head with his large hand. "It's all right. It's all right. Poor Connie. You did your best. You did everything, little woman, I know. You've been wonderful."

She let him treat her like a child. Before him alone she lost her perfect self-command. Muriel saw this with the jealous perception of the onlooker. "They don't want me," she told herself, and went downstairs.

On the morning of the funeral came the wreaths, piles and piles of them, colder than the snow now white along the moorland. Their sickly smell filled the stone house. "It is the smell of death," thought Muriel.

The land-girls stole about, red-eyed, admiring, with crêpe bands round the arms of their tunics.

Dolly lifted a card.

"Oh, come and look at this," she whispered to Gert. "With deepest sympathy from Colonel and Lady Grainger."

Mrs. Hammond, black-veiled and pathetic, entered the hall. They all fell back respectfully. She leaned above the lilies, touching their waxen trumpets with a gentle finger. She also lifted the card.

"Oh, Muriel, how kind of them!" she cried softly. "How very, very kind."

But Muriel went away and cried bitterly because Connie was dead, and now she had not even a sister left who needed her.