“I called at your diggings,” he said. “I had to go through London. They told me you had started. It is good of you.” In the day-time, when Arthur and her father were at the works, she would move through the high, square, stiffly-furnished rooms, or about the great formal garden, with its ordered walks and level lawns. And as with knowledge we come to love some old, stern face our childish eyes had thought forbidding, and would not have it changed, there came to her with the years a growing fondness for the old, plain brick-built house. Generations of Allways had lived and died there: men and women somewhat narrow, unsympathetic, a little hard of understanding; but at least earnest, sincere, seeking to do their duty in their solid, unimaginative way. Perhaps there were other ways besides those of speech and pen. Perhaps one did better, keeping to one’s own people; the very qualities that separated us from them being intended for their need. What mattered the colours, so that one followed the flag? Somewhere, all roads would meet.!

The years that followed—till, like some shipwrecked swimmer to whom returning light reveals the land, she felt new life and hopes come back to her—always remained in her memory vague, confused; a jumble of events, thoughts, feelings, without sequence or connection. “Nothing better could have happened,” she was of opinion. “It means that their hearts are in it.”

He looked at her, and a flush passed over his boyish face. It ended in Joan’s promising to introduce her to discreet theatrical friends who would tell her of cosmetics less injurious to the skin, and advise her generally in the ancient and proper art of “making up.” She had been busy at her machine when Joan had entered; and a pile of delicate white work lay folded on a chair beside her.