Bridget to stay with them! She was always doing silly things like that—impulsive things. But now she was married. She must think more. It was really very considerate of Bridget to have got them all out of a difficulty and to have settled herself a mile away from them; though at first it had seemed rather unkind. Now they could see her always sometime in the day, but not so as to interfere. She was afraid Bridget and George would never really get on, though she—Nelly—wanted to forget all the unpleasantness there had been,—to forget everything—everything but George. The fortnight's honeymoon lay like a haze of sunlight between her and the past.

But Bridget had noticed the voice and the clasped hands,—with irritation. Really, after a fortnight, they might have done with that kind of demonstrativeness. All the same, Nelly was quite extraordinarily pretty—prettier than ever. While the sister was slowly putting on her hat before the only mirror the sitting-room possessed, she was keenly conscious of the two figures near the window, of the man in khaki sitting on the arm of Nelly's chair, holding her hand, and looking down upon her, of Nelly's flushed cheek and bending head. What a baby she looked!—scarcely seventeen. Yet she was really twenty-one—old enough, by a long way, to have done better for herself than this! Oh, George, in himself, was well enough. If he came back from the war, his new-made sister-in-law supposed she would get used to him in time. Bridget however did not find it easy to get on with men, especially young men, of whom she knew very few. For eight or ten years now, she had looked upon them chiefly as awkward and inconvenient facts in women's lives. Before that time, she could remember a few silly feelings on her own part, especially with regard to a young clerk of her father's, who had made love to her up to the very day when he shamefacedly told her that he was already engaged, and would soon be married. That event had been a shock to her, and had made her cautious and suspicious towards men ever since. Her life was now full of quite other interests—incoherent and changeable, but strong while they lasted. Nelly's state of bliss awoke no answering sympathy in her.

'Well, good-bye, Nelly,' she said, when she had put on her things—advancing towards them, while the lieutenant rose to his feet. 'I expect Mrs. Weston will make you comfortable. I ordered in all the things for to-morrow.'

'Everything's charming!' said Nelly, as she put her arms round her sister. 'It was awfully good of you to see to it all. Will you come over to lunch to-morrow? We might take you somewhere.'

'Oh, don't bother about me! You won't want me. I'll look in some time.
I've got a lot of work to do.'

Nelly withdrew her arms. George Sarratt surveyed his sister-in-law with curiosity.

'Work?' he repeated, with his pleasant, rather puzzled smile.

'What are you doing now, Bridget?' said Nelly, softly, stroking the sleeve of her sister's jacket, but really conscious only of the man beside her.

'Reading some proof-sheets for a friend,' was the rather short reply, as
Bridget released herself.

'Something dreadfully difficult?' laughed Nelly.

'I don't know what you mean by difficult,' said Bridget ungraciously, looking for her gloves. 'It's psychology—that's all. Lucy Fenn's bringing out another volume of essays.'

'It sounds awful!' said George Sarratt, laughing. 'I wish I knew what psychology was about. But can't you take a holiday?—just this week?'

He looked at her rather gravely. But Bridget shook her head, and again said good-bye. George Sarratt took her downstairs, and saw her off on her bicycle. Then he returned smiling, to his wife.

'I say, Bridget makes me feel a dunce! Is she really such a learned party?'

Nelly's dark eyes danced a little. 'I suppose she is—but she doesn't stick to anything. It's always something different. A few months ago, it was geology; and we used to go out for walks with a hammer and a bag. Last year it was the-ology! Our poor clergyman, Mr. Richardson, was no match for Bridget at all. She could always bowl him over.'

'Somehow all the "ologies" seem very far away—don't they?' murmured Sarratt, after they had laughed together. They were standing at the window again, his arm close round her, her small dark head pressed against him. There was ecstasy in their nearness to each other—in the silver beauty of the lake—in the soft coming of the June evening; and in that stern fact itself that in one short week, he would have left her, would be facing death or mutilation, day after day, in the trenches on the Ypres salient. While he held her, all sorts of images flitted through his mind—of which he would not have told her for the world—horrible facts of bloody war. In eight months he had seen plenty of them. The signs of them were graven on his young face, on his eyes, round which a slight permanent frown, as of perplexity, seemed to have settled, and on his mouth which was no longer naif and boyish, but would always drop with repose into a hard compressed line.

Nelly looked up.

'Everything's far away'—she whispered—'but this—and you!' He kissed her upturned lips—and there was silence.

Then a robin singing outside in the evening hush, sent a message to them. Nelly with an effort drew herself away.

'Shan't we go out? We'll tell Mrs. Weston to put supper on the table, and we can come in when we like. But I'll just unpack a little first—in our room.'

She disappeared through a door at the end of the sitting-room. Her last words—softly spoken—produced a kind of shock of joy in Sarratt. He sat motionless, hearing the echo of them, till she reappeared. When she came back, she had taken off her serge travelling dress and was wearing a little gown of some white cotton stuff, with a blue cloak, the evening having turned chilly, and a hat with a blue ribbon. In this garb she was a vision of innocent beauty; wherein refinement and a touch of strangeness combined with the dark brilliance of eyes and hair, with the pale, slightly sunburnt skin, the small features and tiny throat, to rivet the spectator. And she probably knew it, for she flushed slightly under her husband's eyes.

'Oh, what a paradise!' she said, under her breath, pointing to the scene beyond the window. Then—lifting appealing hands to him—'Take me there!'

CHAPTER II

The newly-married pair crossed a wooden bridge over the stream from the Lake, and found themselves on its further shore, a shore as untouched and unspoilt now as when Wordsworth knew it, a hundred years ago. The sun had only just vanished out of sight behind the Grasmere fells, and the long Westmorland after-glow would linger for nearly a couple of hours yet. After much rain the skies were clear, and all the omens fair. But the rain had left its laughing message behind; in the full river, in the streams leaping down the fells, in the freshness of every living thing—the new-leafed trees, the grass with its flowers, the rushes spreading their light armies through the flooded margins of the lake, and bending to the light wind, which had just, as though in mischief, blotted out the dream-world in the water, and set it rippling eastwards in one sheet of living silver, broken only by a cloud-shadow at its further end. Fragrance was everywhere—from the trees, the young fern, the grass; and from the shining west, the shadowed fells, the brilliant water, there breathed a voice of triumphant beauty, of unconquered peace, which presently affected George Sarratt strangely.

They had just passed