here and there, they caught sight of new points of view between trees. Betty was glad to feel Rosy’s slim body near her side, and she was conscious that it gradually seemed to draw closer and closer. Then Rosy’s hand slipped into hers and held it softly on her lap.
When they drove together in this way they were usually both of them rather silent and quiet, but now Rosalie spoke of many things—of Ughtred, of Nigel, of the Dunholms, of New York, and their father and mother.
“I want to talk because I’m nervous, I think,” she said half apologetically. “I do not want to sit still and think too much—of father’s coming. You don’t mind my talking, do you, Betty?”
“No,” Betty answered. “It is good for you and for me.” And she met the pressure of Rosy’s hand halfway.
But Rosy was talking, not because she did not want to sit still and think, but because she did not want Betty to do so. And all the time she was trying to thrust away the thought growing in her mind.
They spent the evening together in the library, and Betty read aloud. She read a long time—until quite late. She wished to tire herself as well as to force herself to stop listening.
When they said good-night to each other Rosy clung to her as desperately as she had clung on the night after her arrival. She kissed her again and again, and then hung her head and excused herself.
“Forgive me for being—nervous. I’m ashamed of myself,” she said. “Perhaps in time I shall get over being a coward.”
But she said nothing of the fact that she was not a coward for herself, but through a slowly formulating and struggled— against fear, which chilled her very heart, and which she could best cover by a pretence of being a poltroon.
She could not sleep when she went to bed. The night seemed crowded with strange, terrified thoughts. They were all of Betty, though sometimes she thought of her father’s coming, of her mother in New York, and of Betty’s steady working throughout the day. Sometimes she cried, twisting her hands together, and sometimes she dropped into a feverish sleep, and dreamed that she was watching Betty’s face, yet was afraid to look at it.
She awakened suddenly from one of these dreams, and sat upright in bed to find the dawn breaking. She rose and threw on a dressing-gown, and went to her sister’s room because she could not bear to stay away.
The door was not locked, and she pushed it open gently. One of the windows had its blind drawn up, and looked like a patch of dull grey. Betty was standing upright near it. She was in her nightgown, and a long black plait of hair hung over one shoulder heavily. She looked all black and white in strong contrast. The grey light set her forth as a tall ghost.
Lady Anstruthers slid forward, feeling a tightness in her chest.
“The dawn wakened me too,” she said.
“I have been waiting to see it come,” answered Betty. “It is going to be a dull, dreary day.”
CHAPTER XLVII
“I HAVE NO WORD OR LOOK TO REMEMBER”
It was a dull and dreary day, as Betty had foreseen it would be. Heavy rain clouds hung and threatened, and the atmosphere was damp and chill. It was one of those days of the English autumn which speak only of the end of things, bereaving one of the power to remember next year’s spring and summer, which, after all, must surely come. Sky is grey, trees are grey, dead leaves lie damp beneath the feet, sunlight and birds seem forgotten things. All that has been sad and to be regretted or feared hangs heavy in the air and sways all thought. In the passing of these hours there is no hope anywhere. Betty appeared at breakfast in short dress and close hat. She wore thick little boots, as if for walking.
“I am going to make visits in the village,” she said. “I want a basket of good things to take with me. Stourton’s children need feeding after their measles. They looked very thin when I saw them playing in the road yesterday.”
“Yes, dear,” Rosalie answered. “Mrs. Noakes shall prepare the basket. Good chicken broth, and jelly, and nourishing things. Jennings,” to the butler, “you know the kind of basket Miss Vanderpoel wants. Speak to Mrs. Noakes, please.”
“Yes, my lady,” Jennings knew the kind of basket and so did Mrs. Noakes. Below stairs a strong sympathy with Miss Vanderpoel’s movements had developed. No one resented the preparation of baskets. Somehow they were always managed, even if asked for at untimely hours.
Betty was sitting silent, looking out into the greyness of the autumn-smitten park.
“Are—are you listening for anything, Betty?” Lady Anstruthers asked rather falteringly. “You have a sort of listening look in your eyes.”
Betty came back to the room, as it were.
“Have I,” she said. “Yes, I think I was listening for— something.”
And Rosalie did not ask her what she listened for. She was afraid she knew.
It was not only the Stourtons Betty visited this morning. She passed from one cottage to another—to see old women, and old men, as well as young ones, who for one reason or another needed help and encouragement. By one bedside she read aloud; by another she sat and told cheerful stories; she listened to talk in little kitchens, and in one house welcomed a newborn thing. As she walked steadily over grey road and down grey lanes damp mist rose and hung about her. And she did not walk alone. Fear walked with her, and anguish, a grey ghost by her side. Once she found herself standing quite still on a side path, covering her face with her hands. She filled every moment of the morning, and walked until she was tired. Before she went home she called at the post office, and Mr. Tewson greeted her with a solemn face. He did not wait to be questioned.
“There’s been no news to-day, miss, so far,” he said. “And that seems as if they might be so given up to hard work at a dreadful time that there’s been no chance for anything to get out. When people’s hanging over a man’s bed at the end, it’s as if everything stopped but that—that’s stopping for all time.”
After luncheon the rain began to fall softly, slowly, and with a suggestion of endlessness. It was a sort of mist itself, and became a damp shadow among the bare branches of trees which soon began to drip.
“You have been walking about all morning, and you are tired, dear,” Lady Anstruthers said to her. “Won’t you
