Joan crept back into bed. A new wonder had come to her. And from that night Joan’s belief in Mrs. Munday’s God began to fade, circumstances helping. “Don’t be so silly,” she cried. “There’s nothing going to happen. You’re going to get fat and well again; and live to see him Prime Minister.”!

Only once had she ever thought of marriage. And that was in favour of a middle-aged, rheumatic widower with three children, a professor of chemistry, very learned and justly famous. For about a month she had thought herself in love. She pictured herself devoting her life to him, rubbing his poor left shoulder where it seemed he suffered most, and brushing his picturesque hair, inclined to grey. Fortunately his eldest daughter was a young woman of resource, or the poor gentleman, naturally carried off his feet by this adoration of youth and beauty, might have made an ass of himself. But apart from this one episode she had reached the age of twenty-three heart-whole. “What’s your line?” he asked her. “I take it you have one by your being here. Besides, I am sure you have. I am an old fighter. I can tell the young soldier. What’s your regiment?”

“He must be somewhere,” she said: “the living God of love and hope: the God that Christ believed in.” “Beg pardon, nurse,” he said, “but we’ve sent for a stretcher, as the police don’t seem in any hurry. Would you like us to take him. Or would it upset him, do you think, if he knew?” Joan crept out softly from the room.