SILENT 
 LEGION
 
 THE SILENT LEGION 
 J. E. BUCKROSE
 
 THE 
 
 SILENT LEGION 
 
 BY 
 
 J. E. BUCKROSE,/; 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 THE GOSSIP SHOP, ETC. 
 
 A **' 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP 
 
 P U:B L I S H E R S
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1918, 
 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I THE BANNER 9 
 
 II ONE LITTLE COMPANY 22 
 
 HI A DAY IN THE AVENUE 43 
 
 IV A SOLDIER 6l 
 
 V LITTLE WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS .... 7& 
 
 VI PICTURES 9 1 
 
 VII SIGNALS I0 5 
 
 VIII SATURDAY AFTERNOON 122 
 
 LX THE AMATEUR DETECTIVES 137 
 
 X A HOLIDAY I 54 
 
 XI SEA-WIND J 67 
 
 XII PARTING ... *&4 
 
 XIII THE END OF SUMMER IQ3 
 
 XIV SACRIFICE 211 
 
 xv A JOURNEY'S END 232 
 
 XVI CHELTENHAM 251 
 
 XVH THE RETURN 267 
 
 XVIH CHANGE 2 &3 
 
 XIX WHAT REMAINS 3 
 
 2136499
 
 THE SILENT LEGION
 
 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE BANNER 
 
 CHESTNUT AVENUE is a long street, with a 
 high wall concealing the railway lines at one end 
 and a main road running across the other. In it is a 
 constant noise of wheels, car-bells, distant footsteps 
 and newsboys shouting. But as all these sounds are a 
 little softened by distance, they mingle together and 
 form an accompaniment to which every life in the 
 Avenue is set. 
 
 Babies are ushered into the grimy brick houses from 
 that vague place where new souls wait with a Swish ! 
 Boom! Ting-ting! and the high, sudden O-oh! of 
 an engine whistle over the wall. And it is thus the 
 tired souls go out. 
 
 But those who are actually living there do not hear 
 these sounds at all unless they are ill, or very unhappy, 
 or very tired ; then they feel a little forlorn, like people 
 standing alone by the sea at evening with the drawing 
 back of the waves in their ears. 
 
 Nobody knows why the street was originally called 
 Chestnut Avenue, for it contains only blackened plane- 
 trees and has produced no chestnuts within the memory 
 
 9
 
 10 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 of man saving only those verbal ones which fat 
 fathers like Mr. Simpson throw at other fat fathers 
 over garden railings after business hours. It is, in- 
 deed, believed that the famous "When is a door not a 
 door?" found its last resting-place in Mr. Simpson's 
 back-garden. He certainly still employs the joke about 
 the curate's egg. 
 
 On this spring afternoon of 1917 he stood resting 
 on his spade, wiping the sweat from his forehead with 
 a trembling hand and wondering for the moment if 
 there were anything wrong with his heart. His round, 
 bald head and little trim legs and big stomach curving 
 under a thin waistcoat were strongly illuminated by 
 the greyish, yellowish radiance which is afternoon sun- 
 shine in Flodmouth. 
 
 He had no idea at all that he was a hero. As a 
 plain matter of fact, he would have been exceedingly 
 annoyed had any one called him any such thing, and 
 would have crossed over the road in future to avoid 
 that person's society. For he shared to the full that 
 strange instinct which forbids the middle class to blow 
 its own trumpet. 
 
 This is all the more strange now because everybody 
 else does it. The upper class has blown delicately 
 for ages through long silver trumpets, of course; and 
 only yesterday, as time goes in history, the working- 
 class suddenly began to blow brass ones so loudly 
 perhaps in a reaction after centuries of silence that 
 the silver trumpets could no longer be heard. But 
 the class to which Mr. Simpson belongs simply does 
 not blow. 
 
 Many members of it, like Mr. Simpson's sister-in- 
 law, are even ashamed of being called "middle-class."
 
 THE BANNER 11 
 
 These are the traitors. And when Mrs. Horace Simp- 
 son went to associate in Bath with a few ancient off- 
 shoots of the aristocracy who had put into port there" 
 after the storms of life, she suppressed any mention of 
 the Simpsons and trotted out constantly an aunt of her 
 own who had married an Archdeacon in the North 
 Riding of Yorkshire. But beyond withdrawing her 
 capital and further embarrassing Mr. Simpson's busi- 
 ness, she soon ceased to trouble her relatives in Chest- 
 nut Avenue. 
 
 It was in the September of 1914 that her husband, 
 Major Horace Simpson of the Territorials, had sud- 
 denly ceased to go into Flodmouth every day with a 
 little black bag and a flower in his button-hole: and 
 almost next day, as it seemed, he had died gloriously 
 for his country, leading a forlorn hope. 
 
 The news fell so strangely then on Chestnut Avenue. 
 The people there had hated war and had absolutely 
 believed in the impossibility of it, in these enlightened 
 days. The idea of taking the life of another man with 
 whom they had no personal quarrel seemed intolerable 
 to them. But at the news of Major Simpson's death 
 they began to steel themselves, as if they had seen a 
 friend struck down beside them. 
 
 Then time went on a little and so many things 
 happened that he seemed to be quickly out of mind 
 as if he had never lived. Mr. Simpson might be for- 
 given for thinking as he sometimes did think that 
 his only brother had died in vain. But this was not 
 so; for a wind of the spirit passed then through the 
 grey streets of Flodmouth, raising dead things to life 
 in the old city like the rustling wind in the cave of 
 Elijah. It was indeed the almost forgotten glory of
 
 12 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 sacrifice that came alive again when the news-boy ran 
 about shouting: "Speshul Edeetion! Loss of a well- 
 known Flodmouth officer!" 
 
 But all this took place nearly three years ago, and 
 since that time Mr. Simpson's only son Jim had joined 
 up, been trained and fallen. Nobody knows what 
 the Simpsons felt about that nobody, that is, except- 
 ing the thousands who have felt the same for they 
 kept their heads up and went about as usual. 
 
 Neighbours said Mrs. Simpson was "wonderful"; 
 and as she came down the garden path in the sunlight, 
 it might be seen that she had perhaps been just a 
 little too "wonderful." Her hair was whitening very 
 fast and her face had an opaque pallor. It was just 
 at the most trying period of her physical life that she 
 had been called upon to bear a shock and sorrow greafr- 
 er than any she had ever known. But she smiled at 
 her husband as she saw him wiping his forehead, and 
 said cheerfully enough 
 
 "Honest sweat! We shall soon all think we're 
 back in the Garden of Eden. I've just seen Binny go 
 by with a spade over his shoulder instead of golf- 
 clubs." She paused. "I'm glad you took a holiday 
 this afternoon." 
 
 His face clouded and he left his spade in the ground. 
 
 "Yes. The fresh air seems to suit me. I I hope 
 to get more of it." He waited a minute, but it was 
 no good; he must tell her before their daughter Bar- 
 bara came home, and she was expected that evening. 
 "Harriet, I shall have to close the business down. I 
 shan't be going any more. There's nothing to do. 
 I've only been hanging about, playing at it, for weeks." 
 
 Mrs. Simpson was silent, struggling with a feeling
 
 THE BANNER 13 
 
 of f aintness ; then she said in a low tone : "You ought 
 to have told me before, Sam." 
 
 "I knew you would say so ; but the doctor expressly 
 warned me, after you had that last heart attack, that 
 you were not to have any suspense or worry. I did 
 it for the best, Harriet. I thought you'd bear it bet- 
 ter when you had Barbara here to cheer you up." 
 
 "Was that was why you would send for Barbara?" 
 
 "No, not altogether : with no servant, and you ill, 
 the doctor insisted on my sending for her. And after 
 all, who should she nurse before her own mother?" 
 
 "She is so disappointed, though. Poor little Bar- 
 bara! Oh, I do so hate bringing her home from the 
 hospital on my account. I'd rather have done any- 
 thing," said Mrs. Simpson. 
 
 "Well, it can't be helped," said Mr. Simpson, ad- 
 vancing down the walk with his light, cork-like step, 
 which went so oddly with his bulky figure. "We'd 
 better go in and have supper. It will be time to go 
 to the station directly." 
 
 Mrs. Simpson put her hand on his arm and looked 
 into his face with her faded blue eyes, which had been 
 nearly as bright as Barbara's before Jim went. 
 "Sam," she said, "are you keeping anything else from 
 me ? I can't bear that, you know." 
 
 "No, Harriet, I'm not." 
 
 "You mean it? On your honour?" 
 
 "I do indeed. On my honour, my dear." He 
 paused, then added as they entered the house: "I 
 don't see why you should think Barbara is so disap- 
 pointed; she never wrote a word to that effect in her 
 letters."
 
 14 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "As if it were what she wrote. It's what she's left 
 unwritten." 
 
 "Oh, you women ! Always trying to ferret out some- 
 thing underneath!" said Mr. Simpson, rubbing his 
 feet energetically on the mat. "Anyway, with you ill, 
 and Elsie home from school with a weak back, she'd 
 got to come there was nothing else for it." 
 
 A few minutes later they sat at the dining-table, on 
 which Elsie, a thin, sallow, peaked-looking girl of 
 fifteen, with great, brown eyes, had just placed a dish 
 of curried butter beans. 
 
 "I hope you're not tired of them, Father?" she 
 said. "We're told to eat beans. They say there is 
 more nourishment to the square inch in beans than in 
 beef -steak." 
 
 "U-um !" said Mr. Simpson, drawing a long breath. 
 "They smell delicious . . . delicious!" 
 
 But Elsie noticed that he did not take a large helping 
 himself, and soon afterwards she ran him to earth in 
 the scullery with the carbonate of soda bottle in one 
 hand and a glass of hot water in the other. 
 
 "Ha!" she said, bursting out upon him suddenly 
 from the door. "You think I don't know. I do. 
 You've got indigestion." 
 
 "I have not," said Mr. Simpson emphatically: and 
 he added, trying to work himself up into a slight 
 temper : "Surely I can drink what I like in my own 
 house." 
 
 But he had, all unawares, waved the great banner of 
 the middle-class. It floated above the scullery sink, 
 with its undramatic legend : "Bear and Say Nothing," 
 even while he concluded somewhat irritably: "Go
 
 THE BANNER 
 
 and get your things on, Elsie. We shall be late for the 
 train." 
 
 So the three of them, walking very slowly because of 
 Mrs. Simpson, made their way towards the railway 
 station against a stream of bright-eyed, powdered, 
 silk-stockinged clerks and typists. The brisk self- 
 reliance of the girls made this stream as vital as a clear 
 brook running over stones, and the dull air seemed the 
 fresher for it, in spite of a certain odour of cheapish 
 scent. 
 
 As the Simpsons entered the station they encoun- 
 tered a tall, handsome, rather heavily built man of 
 about forty-three, who stopped and spoke to them. 
 
 "Whither away?" he said with an affectation of 
 gallantry. "It's ages since I saw you." 
 
 "We are meeting Barbara," said Mrs. Simpson. 
 
 "Oh!" He grew immediately alert and interested. 
 "Is she coming home for a holiday?" 
 
 "No, Garret, for good," said Mr. Simpson. "My 
 wife has not been well and we are obliged to have 
 Barbara at home." 
 
 "Glad to hear that. Well, good-night. Only just 
 going out by this train. Doing the work of three. 
 We are absolutely understaffed and crowded with work 
 at our office. Good-night, Mrs. Simpson. So glad to 
 have seen you." 
 
 "Well," said Elsie looking after him, "it's more than 
 I am. I hate to see that Frank Garret bursting with 
 prosperity and his button-hole and all. I hate 
 him !" 
 
 "Hush, Elsie!" said Mrs. Simpson. 
 
 "Why didn't he enlist, then?" demanded Elsie . 
 
 "Well, you know he is over age; and he is an
 
 i6 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 accountant," said Mr. Simpson. "They can't be done 
 without at this time." 
 
 "I don't care : I wish he would go away from Flod- 
 mouth," said Elsie vehemently. "He will only come 
 sneaking round Barbara again, and she has wasted 
 five or six years of her life over him already." 
 
 "Nonsense !" said Mrs. Simpson. "There has never 
 been anything serious between Barbara and Frank 
 Garret." (She gave him both names as did every 
 one in Flodmouth the very newsboys and shop- 
 girls saying on seeing him : "There goes Frank 
 Garret!") 
 
 "Of course there's been nothing serious," said Elsie. 
 "But that wasn't Barbara's fault. It was he who 
 couldn't make up his mind to do without luxuries and 
 live in a side street. He loved Barbara a little less than 
 his motor-car." 
 
 "Elsie !" commanded Mrs. Simpson. "I won't have 
 you talk like that about your sister. I am afraid you 
 have got spoilt since she has been away." 
 
 "Well, she needn't think she is going to come the 
 elder sister over me when she does come back," mut- 
 tered Elsie. "And I only talk like that because I 
 love her. I hated to see him flirting round with all 
 the girls and just tossing over Barbara a look when he 
 felt inclined." 
 
 "Now it's 'hate.' She's always riding some word 
 to death," chuckled Mr. Simpson. "Bless me, Elsie, 
 if a young man can't look round him a bit, things 
 have got to a queer pass. I'm sure Barbara doesn't 
 bother her head about him one way or another." 
 
 "Of course not," agreed Mrs. Simpson at once
 
 THE BANNER 17 
 
 though her whole being had responded to Elsie's tirade 
 with a quivering intensity. 
 
 And as they waited, little groups of soldiers went 
 through the station, looking already in expression and 
 bearing a race apart, though so recently civilians like 
 the rest. The air had the peculiar deadness common 
 to terminus stations, and the Simpsons' disjointed 
 remarks fell dully on it quite differently from words 
 spoken in the fresh, outer air. But the three seemed 
 gay enough as they stood there, and some acquaintance 
 crossing to the bookstall spoke of them. 
 
 "You'd wonder the Simpsons would seem in such 
 good spirits when you remember how their Jim went 
 out for the last time just about this hour. I hap- 
 pened to be there, and I saw him so handsome and 
 jolly." 
 
 "Yes. Perhaps they haven't thought of it. People 
 take things differently. Let's go and see the soldiers 
 off " 
 
 But five minutes later, when a train ran out of the 
 station with the lads all waving and singing, the hearts 
 of the Simpsons seemed ready to burst. They strove 
 to hide this from each other, though Mr. Simpson 
 walked away a few steps muttering to himself : "I 
 could bear it all right if only the lads wouldn't be so 
 dam jolly." But he very soon came back to say with 
 a breezy air: "Nasty draught in this station always!" 
 He paused, then added with a poor imitation of his 
 familiar chuckle that fat chuckle which always 
 seemed to be enjoying itself somewhere behind his 
 waistcoat before coming forth : "A black draught, eh, 
 Elsie?" 
 
 "I hate jokes when I'm tired," said Elsie, pretend-
 
 i8 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 ing to take some grime out of her eye. "Oh, here's 
 Barbara's train at last!" 
 
 So they all turned toward the barrier, beyond which 
 a brown-haired, blue-eyed girl came hurrying towards 
 them. She was of middle height and plumper than 
 she would have wished, her admiration being for lean 
 and sinuous ladies. But with her dimples showing, 
 and the clear red in her cheeks, she seemed lovely to 
 the little group waiting for her. 
 
 "Mother!" she said, kissing the pale face with a 
 quick compunction for her own reluctance in coming 
 home. "Are you better ? Ought you to have met me ?" 
 
 "Barbara!" whispered Mrs. Simpson, almost tim- 
 idly, "I'm so sorry, dear, I had to send for you. I 
 didn't want them to tell you." 
 
 Tears rose in Barbara's eyes. It was all very well 
 being reluctant to leave the hospital, and talking re- 
 belliously to friends in the rest-room about living your 
 own life and not being hampered by home ties but 
 at the sight of her mother's trembling lip that all van- 
 ished like smoke for the moment. 
 
 "I'm glad I came. I should never have forgiven 
 them if they had not sent for me," she said eagerly. 
 
 Upstairs in the long attic which ran across the whole 
 breadth of the house, Barbara unpacked while her 
 young sister sat on the bed and talked with her. When 
 it was all finished, she went to the window and leaned 
 out, looking across a grimy plane-tree which grew in 
 the little front garden. She was conscious of hearing 
 the sounds of Flodmouth because she had been a year 
 away, and she felt, as she leaned there watching the 
 shadowy houses opposite, like a person who has lived
 
 THE BANNER 19 
 
 in childhood by the sea and has come back after a long 
 absence. The familiar Swish! Boom! Ting-ting! 
 and the shrieking O-oh ! of the engine were very dear 
 to her just then. 
 
 "Nice to be back again!" So she voiced it all, not 
 turning round from the window. 
 
 "Um. Glad you think so," said Elsie. " 'Fraid 
 you'll tell a different tale before long. You won't 
 find it entirely beer and skittles doing general servant 
 without any wages, I bet." 
 
 "I daresay not. But it's not very funny for poor 
 Dad either, having to give up his business." 
 
 "It's his business that's given him up," said Elsie. 
 "Now, I s'pose he'll have to go round cap in hand to 
 try and find a job in somebody else's office. Nice 
 thing for our father after the way he has always 
 been looked up to." 
 
 "Well ... no good grousing. What has to be 
 must be," said Barbara. Then she pulled down the 
 blinds and went back into the room. "You look 
 dog-tired. Let's get to bed, Elsie." 
 
 "I am tired. I'm always tired. Oh, Barbara, I 
 hate being such a crock. It is horrid." 
 
 "Poor old Elsie! I know it must be. But you'll 
 grow out of it," said Barbara, in her clear voice, which 
 took on such deep notes crooning notes, they were 
 when she wanted to be kind. 
 
 "All very well for you to talk : standing there look- 
 ing as strong as a horse!" flung out fretful, over- 
 tired Elsie. "I suppose you think you are going to 
 marry that odious Frank Garret now, and get out 
 of it all. But you won't. You'll be just like Miss 
 Lotty Felling, who has gone on waiting and waiting
 
 20 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 for that silly old Binny next door until they are both 
 old." 
 
 "Rot ! Nobody could imagine Miss Felling waiting 
 for any man," retorted Barbara. 
 
 "No," said the incorrigible Elsie, "I daresay not. 
 But the kind of waiting female who shows the waiting 
 is really saying 'Come on!' And he often does. 
 Neither you nor Miss Felling are that sort." 
 
 "Really, Elsie," said Barbara, "when I was your 
 age " 
 
 "You twiddled your thumbs when spoken to and 
 were respectful to your elders, of course," said Elsie. 
 
 "Come, Elsie, don't be so cross on my first night 
 at home," said Barbara. 
 
 "I'm just going to be how I like," said Elsie. "You 
 needn't think you can come the elder sister over me 
 now you have got back, because I shan't have it." 
 
 Barbara made no remark, and the two girls went on 
 silently with their undressing. At last the light was 
 out, and they lay side by side on the two little narrow; 
 beds as they had done since they were children. 
 
 "Barbie," whispered Elsie then, stretching out a 
 feverish claw. "I'm so sorry I've been such a pig 
 on your first night at home when you have given up 
 your nursing and all to come and look after us. I 
 believe it was partly because I got so excited about 
 your coming. I couldn't sleep last night for thinking 
 about it." 
 
 "Dear old Elsie," murmured Barbara, squeezing 
 the little hot hand. 
 
 Elsie withdrew it at once and they immediately be- 
 gan to speak of a blouse which Barbara had brought
 
 THE BANNER 21 
 
 for a present , but even this slight caress meant a great , 
 deal to the undemonstrative sisters. 
 
 In the room beneath the girls' attic, Mr. Simpson lay 
 by his wife under bedclothes made extra large to 
 accommodate the hill created by his figure; he object- 
 ing, as he always said, to "scrapping for the blanket." 
 Towards dawn the hillcock heaved, and Mrs. Simpson 
 said softly 
 
 "Awake, Sam?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Been awake a long time?" 
 
 "Oh, a bit. Not long," lied Mr. Simpson. 
 
 "You're bothering about the business, of course. 
 It is hard on you, Sam, after spending the best years 
 of your life in building it up from nothing." 
 
 "Lots in the same box," said Mr. Simpson. "I 
 don't pretend to like it, of course. But there it is !" 
 
 Silence fell again, and about the time when the first 
 workman's cars began to run Mr. and Mrs. Simpson 
 at last went to sleep. They snored a little, with heavy 
 middle-aged faces pressed into their pillow, but the 
 banner was above their heads.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 ONE LITTLE COMPANY 
 
 THE Simpsons' drawing-room looked upon the 
 street, and the few women gathered in it were 
 knitting for the soldiers. The near sound of clicking 
 needles made a delicate music to the unnoticed accom- 
 paniment of the mingled noises of Flodmouth outside, 
 and it floated through the open window to join the 
 music of knitters all over England. It rose it must 
 have risen, made by those who had suffered so much 
 to a heaven of pity and love. 
 
 But the women there did not realise this, of course, 
 and talked of ordinary things. 
 
 "Barbara back again, Mrs. Simpson." 
 
 "Yes. We were so sorry we had to bring her 
 back." 
 
 Miss Felling, a tall, middle-aged spinster, with a 
 large red nose that was perched in the centre of a 
 charming face with the oddest effect of incongruity, 
 put down her knitting and said rather dictatorially 
 
 "I call it silly to bring a girl like Barbara back 
 from the hospital just to do the work of a general 
 servant." 
 
 "Who did?" retorted Elsie rudely, up in arms at 
 once against Miss Felling whom she disliked, probably 
 because they were rather akin. "It was because 
 mother was ill. Besides, it's all very well for you to 
 
 22
 
 ONE LITTLE COMPANY 23 
 
 talk, with an excellent servant of your own to do 
 everything for you." 
 
 Miss Felling restrained the words "spoilt monkey!" 
 from crossing her lips, and said to Mrs. Simpson : "I 
 only wish my maid were so excellent. Oh, the times 
 I have longed for Lillie back !" 
 
 "Yes. Yes. She was indeed a treasure," said the 
 others in a sort of ecstatic chorus. 
 
 Then Barbara said from her place by the window, 
 "There's a telegraph boy going up the street." 
 
 "Oh! Not coming here, is he?" 
 
 And they all pretended to be engrossed in their 
 knitting, but with eyes fixed on the window. Young 
 Mrs. Du Caine's blouse rose and fell quickly, though 
 she went on knitting just the same; but it was strange 
 what an atmosphere of cold suspense could be created 
 in a cheerful chintz-covered room by the sight of a 
 telegraph boy cycling up the street. It was, really, 
 as if those women saw Death and Fate stalking visibly 
 along between the grimy brick houses, ready to pause 
 before any one of them. At last the boy stopped 
 just outside Mrs. Wilson's next door Mrs. Wilson 
 who had a son in the trenches just then and a girl at a 
 hospital in France and when the lad alighted from 
 his bicycle her heart almost ceased beating. It was 
 a most terrible, grotesque game of "Throw the Hand- 
 kerchief" that Fate and Death and the telegraph boy 
 and these women were playing at. ... Then the 
 yellow envelope was handed to a lean gentleman who 
 stood outside in the road and who opened it with 
 obvious unconcern. 
 
 "A business telegram for Mr. Binny," said Barbara, 
 in an even tone from her post nearest the window.
 
 24 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 , Followed a slight rustle in the room as the women's 
 bodies relaxed from the rigid attitudes they had uncon- 
 sciously taken, but nothing more was said concerning 
 the telegraph boy. The conversation about Miss Pel- 
 ling's Lillie was resumed where it had been left off. 
 
 "You'll never look on her like again for polishing 
 mahogany furniture." 
 
 "No. And so dependable. It was a tragedy for 
 you when she got married to that soldier." 
 
 There was a pause, then Mrs. Simpson said : "Have 
 you heard from her lately?" 
 
 "Not a word for months," said Miss Felling. 
 
 "How ungrateful after all you did. But you learn 
 not to expect gratitude," said Mrs. Wilson heavily. 
 She was a woman with flat feet and the rather flat- 
 footed mind which so often (and so curiously) goes 
 with them. 
 
 "Oh, she behaved well to me. I shall always have 
 a kindly feeling towards her," said Miss Felling. 
 
 "Housekeeping is indeed a responsibility in these 
 days," said Mrs. Bellerby, a lady with two fluffy 
 daughters the only fluffy girls left in the Avenue. 
 "I don't know what my poor Blanche will do when 
 she settles down, for it will not be one servant in her 
 case but half-a-dozen." 
 
 "So Blanche is to be married directly," said Barbara 
 good-naturedly ; but the other ladies had already heard 
 all the details of Blanche's military romance, future 
 high connections and wedding gifts from the bride- 
 groom's family, and they declined a further instal- 
 ment. 
 
 "I hear," said Mrs. Wilson sighing, "that poor
 
 ONE LITTLE COMPANY 25 
 
 Arthur Garret has been killed in action. Frank Gar- 
 ret's cousin, you know." 
 
 "Yes. Frank Garret comes in for a lot of money." 
 
 "It seems a shame somehow . . . him safe at home 
 and that poor young fellow " 
 
 "Oh, you can't blame anybody. Things happen 
 like that," said Mrs. Simpson. "But it does seem 
 hard. The one who died was so handsome and clever 
 and well-off; he seemed to have everything to lose." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Click! Click! went the needles, and underneath 
 surged a rebellious protest in each woman's heart 
 "How can God let it go on?" But they said nothing. 
 
 Then Miss Felling remarked. 
 
 "So Frank Garret will be quite a rich man now?" 
 And as she spoke she glanced aside at Barbara, who 
 could not keep the red flush out of her cheeks and 
 replied hastily to cover her nervousness: "He'll like 
 that, he has always hated being poor." 
 
 "Poor! With a motor-car!" jeered Elsie. 
 
 "Blanche is to have a Rolls-Royce for her own pri- 
 vate use immediately petrol is procurable," said Mrs. 
 Bellerby snatching her chance. "It is to be a present 
 from the mother of the bridegroom. Mrs. Elliott 
 can't heap enough on Blanche for making the dear 
 boy so happy. But my girls have been carefully 
 brought up. They are so simple, as dear Hugh Elliott 
 says. He calls Blanche his white flower." 
 
 "Then I think she might have the grace to keep it 
 to herself," said Elsie. "If any one ever calls me a 
 white flower " 
 
 "They never will, old girl," interposed Barbara 
 laughing. "More like a sunflower." She glanced out
 
 26 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 of the window again. "Oh, here is your maid Gladys 
 coming across the street, Miss Felling. She is carry- 
 ing a hamper." 
 
 "Hamper!" said Miss Felling. "I'm expecting no 
 hamper. That fool is always making mistakes. What 
 on earth has she done now?" 
 
 Barbara flung the window wide and called out to the 
 pale, goggle-eyed girl on the path: "What is it, 
 Gladys?" 
 
 But Gladys took no notice whatever; she simply 
 blundered through the door and into the room, dumped 
 the hamper down before her mistress and said: 
 "There! Now my responsibility is at an end!" 
 
 "But what is it?" cried Miss Felling. 
 
 "Just what I don't know," said the girl, breathing 
 hard from her haste and the weight of the basket. 
 "I only know I aren't going to be in the house alone 
 with it. It's heavy. It made a noise inside. It may 
 have something to do with Germans for all we can tell. 
 That old mat-mender had a queer look to me, though 
 you said he was all right and let him sit in the hall to 
 mend the mat. Very likely he was a spy. Anyway, 
 somebody brought the hamper who knew you; for 
 there's Miss Felling on it, as plain as life." 
 
 "Who brought it?" asked that lady. 
 
 "Nobody brought it," said Gladys, round-eyed and 
 solemn faced. "It just come. Once I went to the 
 door and it wasn't there . . . next time I went and 
 it was. And something in it made a sort of noise." 
 
 Mrs. Wilson, who had been bending over the lid, 
 drew hastily back. 
 
 "You you don't mean a ticking noise?" 
 
 "N-no. No, I shouldn't call it a tick exactly."
 
 ONE LITTLE COMPANY 27 
 
 "Suppose," said Mrs. Simpson, "that we take it 
 out into the garden to open. If it were a bomb or 
 anything. . . ." 
 
 They bore it out gingerly along the passage and 
 placed it on the gravel path. Barbara cut the string. 
 Every neck was craned forward ; every back leg poised 
 for flight. 
 
 "Why, it's only clothes from the wash!" exclaimed 
 Barbara. 
 
 "Stop! They're not my clothes. You don't know 
 what's underneath," cried Miss Felling. 
 
 "There's something heavy underneath," said Bar- 
 bara, shaking the basket. 
 
 Then a sound floated out through the white muslin 
 and lace upon the grey Flodmouth air. It was a sound 
 so familiar and yet startling that the little Mrs. Du 
 Caine turned quite pale, rushed up to the basket cry- 
 ing out : "Oh, the poor lamb ! Oh ! It'll be smothered ! 
 Oh, what a wicked shame!" and snatched forth a fat 
 baby of about two months old evidently under the 
 influence of a strong dose of soothing syrup. She 
 held it clutched tight while she glanced round at the 
 rest as if defying them to take it from her. 
 
 But nobody wanted to. They only gaped at her 
 with open mouths and eyes like Gladys's and drew in 
 their hind legs. This was not a bomb. There was no 
 need to run. . . . 
 
 It was Gladys after all who broke the spell. 
 
 "Golly!" she breathed out. "I've seen 'em lay it 
 at the father's door in the pictures . . . did last week 
 as ever was . . . but never at the mother's." She 
 stared round, bewildered. "Only Miss Felling, she 
 isn't the mother neither. What is she?"
 
 28 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 And this question so thrillingly pre-occupied all the 
 rest that they refrained from rebuke and only leaned 
 closer. 
 
 "Nothing," said Miss Felling. "I know nothing of 
 it. I have nothing to do with it." 
 
 "It's incredible that any Mother. . . ." began Mrs. 
 Wilson, who invariably said that word with a capital 
 M, and spoke, as it were, for all maternity. 
 
 "Oh!" squealed little Mrs. Du Caine. "Here's a 
 letter. Here's a letter pinned to its frock !" 
 
 Miss Felling stretched out her hand, glanced at the 
 superscription and flushed crimson with surprise. 
 "Lillie's handwriting !" Then, tearing the letter open, 
 she read it through, her face undergoing violent and 
 unnatural changes like- the star face in a cinema. 
 
 "So," she gasped at last, looking up from her letter 
 in a sort of desperation, "so this is the sort of world 
 we live in now, is it?" She paused a moment, then 
 broke forth still more wildly: "It's not a world. It's 
 a bear garden ... a bear garden balancing on an 
 earthquake. Listen to this. . . ." and she began to 
 read aloud in a trembling voice 
 
 "DEAR Miss FELLING, 
 
 "When I left to be married, you said if there 
 was anything in the world you could do for me, you 
 would. I regret to have to inform you that my mar- 
 riage turned out a bigamy through no fault of mine, 
 but owing to him having another wife elsewhere. 
 But he is dead and gone at the Front now, and I bear 
 no malice, poor fellow, for it was a lark while it lasted. 
 Only I have to find a good home for baby until I get
 
 ONE LITTLE COMPANY 29 
 
 a place which can support him properly. I will then 
 send address. 
 
 "I would have called in person, but did not care to 
 come in contact with your new girl under the circum- 
 stances, nor yet with people in the street as I used 
 to be friendly with, though I have nothing to be 
 ashamed of. It was not me that did the bigamy, of 
 course. 
 
 "I know you are not much of a one for babies, but 
 I know I can trust you to treat my boy right. Thank- 
 ing you in anticipation, yours sincerely, 
 
 "LILLIE NELSON (for a short time Brooke). 
 
 "P. S. I don't hold with soothing syrup. I only 
 gave it this once as a convenience." 
 
 "Well!" gasped the listeners. "Did you ever! Oh, 
 what are things coming to?" 
 
 "How horribly unprincipled!" added Mrs. Bellerby, 
 over emphasizing her "h's" lest she should lose them, 
 as she did when they came in difficult places. 
 
 "How odd that we should have been speaking of 
 Lillie. But things constantly happen so," said Mrs. 
 Wilson. 
 
 "How could she?" said Barbara, crooning over the 
 unconscious intruder in Mrs. Du Caine's arms. "The 
 lamb the little sweet " 
 
 "Of course," pronounced Mrs. Wilson with finality, 
 "you will send the child to a Home, Miss Felling. A 
 mother finds the bringing up of a baby a trying and 
 difficult task. You could not possibly manage." 
 
 Now this had also been Miss Felling's idea, but Mrs. 
 Wilson's tone instantly stirred up a feeling of oppo- 
 sition. A spinster was not necessarily a born fool.
 
 30 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "I don't know yet what I shall do," she said. "I 
 shall in any case keep the child for the night and sleep 
 on this matter." Then she looked sharply into the 
 corner whence an unmistakable giggle had proceeded : 
 "Well, Gladys, what is it now?" 
 
 "On'y . . . on'y you talking about sleeping with 
 a fresh baby in the house that's been asleep all day. 
 You don't know." 
 
 "Then I shall have to borrow the benefit of your 
 experience," said Miss Felling, controlling herself, for 
 after all she was dependent on Gladys in this crisis. 
 "Do you know anything about babies?" 
 
 "I do," said Gladys simply. "I'm one of nine. I 
 hate 'em." 
 
 "Never mind," interposed Mrs. Simpson hastily, 
 "the poor little mite is very welcome to stay the night 
 here. Anyway, his father died in France for us." 
 
 Mrs. Simpson was rather a silent woman, and her 
 presence was not much noticed in a room ; only people 
 knew when she went that the place was less full of 
 warmth and kindness. 
 
 Perhaps Gladys may have become conscious of this 
 moral sunshine, for she stepped forward then and said 
 good-naturedly; "I shouldn't behave badly to the 
 bairn, if that's what you think. And if Miss Felling 
 wants him looked after for a day or two, I'll do it. I 
 should be ashamed not to, when he's a soldier's baby 
 that's been killed." And with that she took the cry- 
 ing child from Mrs. Du Caine with an accustomed 
 arm which reassured even that anxious little mother. 
 
 "How funny!" said Barbara, touching the soft lit- 
 tle fingers. "We don't even know his name." 
 
 "We shall have to have him christened if he stops
 
 ONE LITTLE COMPANY 31 
 
 long enough ; but perhaps he has been already. Never 
 mind, twice will only make him twice as holy," said 
 Elsie, staring at the baby out of her great, dark eyes. 
 "I know. Let's call him Kitchener. That'll give him 
 such a good start." 
 
 "A little disrespectful to the dead, don't you think ?" 
 said Mrs. Bellerby. "I always fancy " 
 
 Then across Mrs. Bellerby's refined, tentative ac- 
 cents came Gladys's broad-toned, indignant: "Who's 
 dead ? Not Kitchener ! He's as alive as you or me." 
 
 "Gladys!" said Miss Felling. 
 
 "I don't care. He is. A sergeant I walked out 
 with told me so. All the soldiers know it. You bet, 
 the Germans weren't going to get Kitchener," said 
 Gladys. 
 
 "But he was drowned, you know," said Mrs. Simp- 
 son gently. 
 
 "Who saw him drowned?" demanded Gladys 
 through the baby's crying. "No. Kitchener's alive 
 right enough. It'll all come out after the war, you'll 
 see." She paused, snatched up a bottle from the bas- 
 ket, exclaiming abruptly: "The poor kid's hungry," 
 and was away across the road as suddenly as she had 
 come. 
 
 To the women left behind the Flodmouth noises 
 floated in through the window just as usual; but 
 there was really a sound of beating wings ... of 
 pipes playing across untrodden spaces . . . for they 
 had just been present at that strange and wonderful 
 thing, the birth of a legend. So arose the great myths 
 of the past, and so, but for counter influences, would 
 the clouds of the demi-gods gather round the figure of 
 Kitchener to-day. In the hearts of the "common peo-
 
 32 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 pie" where all legends are conceived this one had al- 
 ready grown strong. 
 
 Mrs. Bellerby, however, was fully occupied with 
 the business of the moment, and she said to Miss Pell- 
 ing, genuinely anxious to guard her neighbour from a 
 serious mistake : "You really ought not to encourage 
 such conduct as Lillie's. She has behaved with brazen- 
 faced effrontery." 
 
 So Miss Felling also thought, but again her imper- 
 fect nature jibbed at guidance. 
 
 "Lillie may be brazen and irresponsible, as you say, 
 but after all, she has had a child. She's better than 
 those war-brides who are simply out for a lark. 
 Wives! I call 'em Week-Enders: that's what I call 
 'em." And she unconsciously fixed such a stern eye 
 on Mrs. Du Caine that the poor little lady faltered 
 out with a nervous giggle : "I've had two in two years. 
 You can't want more than that, can you?" 
 
 And very soon they all rolled up their knitting, say- 
 ing on the way home how dreadfully spoilt that Elsie 
 Simpson was, and how silly Miss Felling had always 
 been about her old servant, and how much older Bar- 
 bara looked with nursing. But even as they spoke 
 they were planning in their minds what they could 
 send or do to help Miss Felling; for now-a-days in 
 the Avenue kindness is very near the surface, ready 
 at any moment to well up and cover any bitter words 
 with a flood of kind deeds. 
 
 Thus, gradually, the slow twilight fell on Chestnut 
 Avenue. After supper the Simpsons sat reading by 
 the fire for it is cold in the spring in Flodmouth 
 and Barbara had just glanced at the clock, saying it
 
 ONE LITTLE COMPANY 33 
 
 was time for bed, when a new sound and terrible 
 mingled with the accustomed Flodmouth noises; the 
 sound which tells that death is hovering over a multi- 
 tude of unarmed and innocent people. Before the 
 warning buzzer had ceased, Mr. Simpson was strug- 
 gling into his overcoat and fixing on his special con- 
 stable's badge. 
 
 "Good-night!" he said. "Expect me when you see 
 me." 
 
 But as he turned to speak hastily over his shoulder, 
 he noticed the ghastly pallor of his wife's face. She 
 was not actually afraid of death, but the sudden sound 
 of the buzzer had startled her and upset her weak 
 heart, and she only kept herself from fainting by force 
 of sheer will ; her heart pounded against her ribs, then 
 seemed to cease, then pounded on again. 
 
 "I'm not afraid. You musn't think I'm afraid," she 
 murmured with blue lips, and tried to smile. 
 
 "Your mother's ill, girls. Look after her," said 
 Mr. Simpson and he had to run out of the house. 
 
 But as he trotted down the avenue his forehead was 
 dark red. He had never hated the Germans when Jim 
 was killed, or when his business was ruined, but now 
 the Evil Thing which has settled itself in the centre 
 of the German nation and lies there spawning by the 
 million had cast one of its filthy offspring into Mr. 
 Simpson's clean and decent soul. He trembled with 
 hate as he hurried along to meet Mr. Binny. 
 
 "We'll stick it out if we starve. We'll stick it out 
 if we die in heaps. We must beat 'em. We must 
 beat 'em," he muttered, trotting along with his jolly, 
 round face that was meant to be so kind all con- 
 gested, and his eyes glaring through his spectacles.
 
 34 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 Then he looked up and stood still. The faint, red 
 glare which is usually over a city after dark had given 
 place to a pageant such as Mr. Simpson had never seen 
 before. Great searchlights swept across the deep blue 
 plain of the sky where all the stars were shining bright, 
 below lay the darkened streets, and, among the stars, 
 as it seemed, was a pale-golden thing like a pencil 
 that the god of battles had cast down after signing 
 the doom of the world. Just so it looked, hovering 
 over Flodmouth, with the splendour of all the search- 
 lights turned upon it. 
 
 He stared up, rooted to the ground, and the zeppelin 
 seemed to waver uncertainly, as if the men steering it 
 were blinded by the swords of light. Then it began 
 to sail away, growing less and less against the wonder- 
 ful blue and silver of the night. Mr. Simpson heard 
 a great shout go up the shout of deliverance, and he 
 began to run again, waving his cap, with his bald head 
 exposed to the night breeze. 
 
 It was about two o'clock in the morning when he 
 and Mr. Binny came off duty. They tramped wearily, 
 Mr. Binny, tall and lean, bending towards his short, 
 stout companion. But the excitement of the hours 
 just past kept them alert in spite of their fatigue, and 
 they were even more ardent than usual in the pursuit 
 of lighted windows. They scanned with a keen eye, 
 as they conversed, the houses on either side of the 
 Avenue. 
 
 "I had a good deal of bother with Miss Felling 
 last week," observed Mr. Simpson. "She is tiresome 
 about her lights. Bless me! There she is again!"
 
 ONE LITTLE COMPANY 35 
 
 And he pointed to a wavering streak on the opposite 
 railings. 
 
 "That's her bedroom; she'll have the baby in there 
 because of the gas-stove," said Mr. Binny; but the 
 most censorious could have thought no evil of this 
 intimate information had they seen his peering, anxious 
 face. "I don't like' knocking her up under the circum- 
 stances," he concluded uneasily. 
 
 "Then we won't do it," said Mr. Simpson. "Let it 
 pass." 
 
 "No!" said Mr. Binny, setting his mouth. "After 
 all, right is right. My duty as a special constable of 
 Flodmouth comes before any feelings of er esteem 
 for Miss Felling. But it is all very unpleasant." 
 
 Mr. Simpson rammed his hands deep into his coat 
 pockets. 
 
 "Binny," he said, "people seem to think we like 
 wandering about half the night looking after lights 
 and getting only abuse for it. It's a beastly job. I 
 detest it !" 
 
 "So do I," said Mr. Binny. "But when you think 
 of our soldiers " 
 
 "I do think," retorted Mr. Simpson. "Otherwise 
 I shouldn't go on at this game, I can tell you." So 
 saying he marched up Miss Felling's garden path and 
 pressed the electric bell. 
 
 There was no response. It was cold and dismal in 
 the quiet streets. With reluctance Mr. Binny left his 
 ambush at the gate and joined his comrade on the 
 top of the steps. 
 
 "You shout," he urged. "I'd rather she didn't hear 
 my voice next-door neighbours and so on '*
 
 36 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "Well, she's very friendly with my family for that 
 matter," said Mr. Simpson rather testily. 
 
 "So she is. So she is. Well, duty conies first, of 
 course." He sighed deeply. "Let's shout together." 
 
 The two gentlemen therefore paused a moment, then 
 lifted up their voices in unison 
 
 "Put out that light!" 
 
 Still no response, though the empty street echoed 
 and heads began to peer from upper windows all along 
 the Avenue. 
 
 At this the blood of Mr. Simpson and Mr. Binny, 
 already a little heated by past events, began to be 
 definitely up. "If she doesn't come, I'll hammer the 
 door down," said Mr. Simpson between clenched teeth. 
 
 "Wait! I'll use my stick," said Mr. Binny; and 
 with a very fierce expression indeed, he poised his 
 heavy walking-stick for a blow; when suddenly, from 
 within, the door burst open, and the stick fell with an 
 unpleasant "Thud!" on something soft. A second 
 later Mr. Simpson, Mr. Binny and Miss Felling were 
 in a confused heap among the grimy daffodils at the 
 bottom of the steps. 
 
 For one brief and horrible moment Mr. Binny 
 believed that he had committed murder, and Mr. 
 Simpson that he had been accessory to the deed. 
 
 Then Miss Felling stirred and said feebly 
 
 "If I hadn't happened to have a Teddy Bear in my 
 arms I believe you would have killed me. I was taking 
 it up to amuse him in case he awakened again. Oh, 
 dear! Oh, dear!" 
 
 After a dazed moment or two Mr. Simpson and 
 Mr. Binny began a very little to recover themselves, 
 and at the back of Mr. Simpson's brain the folly of
 
 ONE LITTLE COMPANY 37 
 
 trying to beguile a baby of two months with a Teddy 
 Bear became dimly apparent. It was just like her 
 he vaguely felt for he was not an admirer of Miss 
 Felling : then he sat up, and common humanity caused 
 him to grab hold of the lady in the darkness. As soon 
 as he found breath to articulate, he stammered out: 
 "I hope nothing is broken." 
 
 "No. Unless perhaps the Teddy Bear's squeaker. 
 It made a most extraordinary sound," faltered Miss 
 Felling, also sitting up among the crushed daffodils. 
 
 Mr. Binny on the other side, being more over- 
 whelmed, took more time to recover himself. But at 
 last he too sat up and touched Miss Felling's dressing- 
 gown with a gingerly right hand. "I I sincerely 
 trust you are not seriously hurt? May I assist you 
 to rise?" he said shakily. 
 
 "No, thank you," said Miss Felling; and she con- 
 cluded defiantly : "I'm not going to put out that light 
 for anybody." 
 
 Which proved once more how slight was her knowl- 
 edge of the male sex; for Mr. Simpson and Mr. Binny 
 had been ready to overlook a display of fireworks on 
 her part if she had said nothing about them. Now 
 they were on their mettle again. 
 
 "I'm sorry; but we must insist," said Mr. Simpson, 
 still panting slightly. "The safety of the city " 
 
 "I'll die before I have that child waked up again," 
 interrupted Miss Felling, rising unsteadily. 
 
 "Only " began Mr. Simpson, but even in his 
 
 intense irritation he swallowed the words "only pity," 
 and substituted "Only difficulty is, you wouldn't die 
 alone. And you must consider the safety of your 
 neighbours."
 
 38 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "We are really obliged . . ." added Mr. Binny, thus 
 embarrassingly placed between gallantry and duty. 
 
 Both comrades, however, were equally unprepared 
 for the sudden retreat up the steps which left them 
 planted there, and they stood blankly listening as 
 Miss Felling called through a crack of the door: "I 
 don't care! I don't care! If I put the light out, he'll 
 wake up. He did before. You may take me to prison 
 if you like, but I won't wake that child up now he's 
 once off, not for every Special Constable in England !" 
 
 The door shut Mr. Simpson and Mr. Binny were 
 left outside. They were conscious of several di- 
 shevelled heads peering through the darkness at them 
 from windows round about, though nothing could be 
 seen. They turned to each other, asking mutely what 
 was to be done next "After all," said Mr. Binny, 
 "she made nothing of an exceedingly unpleasant fall. 
 Many women would have been in hysterics." 
 
 "Yes: and I think there's no further danger to be 
 anticipated to-night," said Mr. Simpson. 
 
 With one consent they turned away, walked down 
 the path and out of the gate, which they closed very 
 softly, as if with an instinctive desire to conceal even 
 from themselves the fact that they had gone. 
 
 "Come in for a moment and have a drop of whisky," 
 said Mr. Binny, opening the next gate. "I expect you 
 feel a bit shaken, and your people are in bed." 
 
 "Well, I'm not taking any during the war, but on 
 
 this occasion " murmured Mr. Simpson, feeling 
 
 his bruises. 
 
 So a few minutes later they sat on either side of the 
 fire which Mr. Binny's capable housekeeper had left 
 banked up, each with a glass of pale yellow liquid in
 
 ONE LITTLE COMPANY 39 
 
 his right hand and a pipe in his mouth. They were 
 both middle-aged men Mr. Binny much overworked 
 during the day and they had both been doing gratui- 
 tous labour for which no one praised and many people 
 abused them. But at the present moment life took 
 on a comparatively rosy hue. For Mr. Simpson was; 
 abstemious at all times and had been a teetotaller for 
 a year, and he became conscious of a pleasant glow 
 creeping through his veins and of a deeper friendship 
 for Mr. Binny than he had hitherto experienced ; while' 
 Mr. Binny had observed much the same discipline since: 
 the first year of the war, and he, too, excited by the 
 events of the evening and upset in two senses by the 
 encounter with Miss Felling, was feeling very confi- 
 dentially disposed towards Mr. Simpson. It was alto- 
 gether one of those hours in which the carefully 
 guarded reticence of a lifetime may be broken through, 
 to the amazement of both parties next morning. 
 
 "Simpson," said Mr. Binny, his long angular limbs 
 easily disposed in a chair especially made for them, 
 "you would almost wonder that Miss Felling had 
 never married. She is a very uncommon woman." 
 
 "Oh, very," said Mr. Simpson, at peace with all 
 mankind. 
 
 But this was not enough for Mr. Binny. He lowered 
 his voice. 
 
 "Good-looking too, but for . . ." delicacy somehow 
 forbade words, and he touched his nose with his pipe 
 stem. 
 
 "Yes. Pity that : been so ever since I can remember 
 her." 
 
 Puff ! Puff ! went the pipes. Each took another sip.
 
 40 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "I sometimes wonder," said Mr. Binny, "if all that 
 one hears about married life is true." 
 
 Mr. Simpson started a little. He was very sleepy 
 and had begun to nod in his chair. "Eh ! Oh, depends 
 what you've heard," he said, rousing himself to take 
 a proper interest in his host's conversation. 
 
 "Well!" Mr. Binny flushed slightly, took another 
 sip and said with assumed carelessness: "I've heard 
 that when a man has been married six months he 
 doesn't notice in the least what his wife looks like. All 
 the same whether she's beautiful, or as plain as a 
 pikestaff." 
 
 "Um," Mr. Simpson meditated rather hazily. "I 
 .should say it's this way; you don't notice if she looks 
 all right but you do if she doesn't." 
 
 "Anything queer about her, you mean ?" 
 . "Yes." 
 
 They smoked again for a few minutes in silence. It 
 was most comfortable after the bleak night outside. 
 Then Mr. Binny started again. 
 
 "I have known Miss Felling a very long time." 
 
 "Oh, yes. Excellent woman! Puff, Puff!" went 
 Mr. Simpson. 
 
 "Simpson," said Mr. Binny, leaning forward with 
 such sudden intensity that Mr. Simpson also sat up 
 straight with a jerk and became almost wide awake. 
 "I have had it in my mind to propose to her since I 
 was thirty and she about twenty-seven. She has a 
 delightful way of talking. Ever so many times in 
 the dark when we have talked over the garden wall I 
 have nearly done it." 
 
 "Why didn't you then?" said Mr. Simpson. 
 
 But Mr. Binny did not answer that question directly*
 
 ONE LITTLE COMPANY 41 
 
 He took another sip and craned his long neck still 
 further across the hearth towards his friend. 
 
 "Simpson," he said, "you are the first person I 
 have ever talked to like this. But as one man to 
 another . . . is it necessary to kiss your wife every 
 day when you are both middle-aged, or would just 
 occasionally do ?" 
 
 "Sure I don't know," grunted Mr. Simpson, non- 
 committal. "Different people, different ways, I 
 expect." 
 
 "You're naturally surprised at such a question," 
 said Mr. Binny hastily, more alert than Mr. Simpson 
 had ever seen him. "But I don't know any one else 
 with whom I could discuss. . . . And it would be so 
 terrible if I got her and then I really couldn't. . . ." 
 He paused. "Simpson, it seems a cruel thing to say, 
 but I love that woman and yet I couldn't kiss her. 
 I simply can't get over her nose." He paused again, 
 then broke forth : "I know it sounds awful. I know 
 a woman could take a man having a far worse physical 
 defect than that without minding a bit. How is it?" 
 
 Mr. Simpson flogged his quiescent mind into activity. 
 He wanted to console Binny. Binny was a good chap. 
 
 "I know," he said at last. "Women have been 
 obliged to marry men they didn't want to for ages, 
 but men have been freer to choose. They have kept 
 more of their instinct for natural selection that's why 
 you can't stand Miss Felling's nose. You're instinc- 
 tively avoiding a future generation with the same 
 noses." 
 
 "Ah! Where did you read that?" said Mr. Binny 
 doubtfully. He rose and offered to fill up his friend's 
 glass. "Well, there it is, Simpson. I like her better
 
 42 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 than any other woman, and yet I can't ask her to marry 
 me. And now we're both getting old." 
 
 Mr. Simpson shook his head, declining more whisky, 
 and made a sympathetic noise in his throat. As he 
 rose he again sought words of consolation. 
 
 "Never mind, Binny," he said, glancing at the deep 
 arm-chair. "Anyway, a bachelor can go to bed just 
 what time he likes and knock his pipe out on the 
 mantelpiece." He paused and strove for a final con- 
 solation. "Perhaps she wouldn't have you now," he 
 concluded helpfully. 
 
 "No. No. Most probably not," agreed Mr. Binny 
 at once, but he rubbed his chin and seemed imperfectly 
 comforted. 
 
 Then the two friends went to the front door. 
 
 "I can rely on your discretion, of course," remarked 
 the host, already, as the chill air blew in upon him, 
 beginning to wonder at his own expansiveness. "Per- 
 haps I exaggerated in what I said to you about Miss 
 Felling. A bachelor naturally speculates on such sub- 
 jects sometimes without meaning anything. Good- 
 night." 
 
 "Good-night," said Mr. Simpson. 
 
 As he trudged across the road a chill dawn wind 
 was already blowing up from the river Flod. Little 
 Kitchener had awakened, and his long wail echoed 
 the O-oh! of the engine whistle at the end of the 
 Avenue. Mr. Simpson thought what a queer world 
 this was, as he inserted his latch-key into the lock of 
 his own front door.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A DAY IN THE AVENUE 
 
 EVEN before Mr. Simpson fell asleep, country 
 wagons were jolting past the street end; work- 
 men's cars started running; the first milk-cart rattled 
 up the Avenue; trains came faster and faster on the 
 other side of the blank" wall. . . . All the great orches- 
 tra of Flodmouth was in full swing again, after that 
 strange moment on the preceding night when Death 
 hovered among the searchlights over the city. 
 
 Mr. Simpson came down to breakfast rather late, 
 and he could see, as he descended the stairs, that the 
 front door was open and the bright, cool morning air 
 was stirring Barbara's cotton frock in the passage. 
 Through the doorway he caught a glimpse of those 
 remaining daffodils upon which Miss Felling and party 
 had not sat, and the Bellerby girls were just going 
 past to help at a Flag Day, with light dresses all 
 a-flutter and slim ankles twinkling as they hurried 
 along. 
 
 Mr. Simpson was filled with a sudden triumph and 
 exultation. He was alive and well on this glorious 
 morning. Amid the carnage and suffering of a world, 
 he was all right! 
 
 Then, instantly, he had a pricking sense of shame. 
 He snatched up the paper and forced his mind to 
 
 43
 
 44 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 take in the details of the fighting on the Western 
 front. 
 
 But both exultation and shame were wholly uncon- 
 scious. Mr. Simpson was not aware he had indulged 
 in either as he drank his tea and munched his toast, 
 or that a million men and women in Europe had 
 experienced the same on that jocund morning. 
 
 The window was open and two maidservants stood 
 outside in the sunshine Gladys and a friend. 
 
 "Heard about our baby? He! He!" said Gladys. 
 
 "Yes. Rum thing a baby at your house. He! 
 He!" and they giggled together. 
 
 "Well," continued Gladys, "it won't be at our 
 house long: that's one blessing. I ain't so soft as I 
 look." 
 
 "Why, what did you do? Give in your notice?" 
 
 "No. I didn't do nothing. That's just it " Gladys 
 paused. "Not that I would have let the poor little 
 bairn cry to harm itself, of course. But we did have 
 a night of it, I can tell you. And she was off by eight 
 o'clock this morning to make arrangements with Mrs. 
 Hobby, the porter's wife, that lost her baby in January. 
 She's paying a good lot, but it'll be a fine thing for Mrs. 
 Hobby, and she'd ha' pawned her petticoat, I do 
 believe, before she'd go through another such night.'"' 
 She paused again. "Not that I should have minded 
 giving in my notice." 
 
 "What for? Going into munitions?" 
 
 "No, I can't; I've a bad chest." She paused and 
 brought forth vehemently: "No, it's this rationing 
 business I can't stick weighing and watching every 
 mouthful you eat. A poor girl must eat if she's to do 
 her work."
 
 A DAY IN THE AVENUE 45 
 
 "Yes. This rationing's only another name for 
 meanness. It's all got up by the rich to do the poor 
 folks in some way." 
 
 They looked up and down the street, their young 
 faces dull and suspicious for a moment. Then they 
 smiled at each other. 
 
 "Well, so long. Glad you've got rid of the kid, 
 though I'm sorry for it. The mother must be a rum 
 'un." 
 
 "It's Miss Felling's Lillie. Her that was such a 
 pattern of a servant," said Gladys. "They think I 
 don't know, but I couldn't help hearing. They seem 
 to fancy servants hasn't got ears." 
 
 "You're right. I'm sick of being a servant. Every- 
 body looks down on you and you've no freedom. My 
 youngest sister is in an office, and look at her. . . . 
 "Well, I must be getting on." 
 
 They parted. 
 
 Mr. Simpson rose from the table as the postman 
 passed the window, and went out to receive the letters 
 at the gate. At the furthei end of the Avenue stood 
 little Mrs. Du Caine, with one baby holding her hand 
 and the other in her arms. Mrs. Wilson pretended 
 to weed the front garden, not desiring the neigh- 
 bours to see that she was watching openly. It was 
 the same at nearly every house in the Avenue, and 
 in every street in Flodmouth. You could almost 
 hear, among the chorus of city noises, the faint 
 thud! thud! of women's hearts beating as they 
 waited. 
 
 But in the Simpsons' house that sort of waiting was 
 now over; and Mr. Simpson took his batch casually,
 
 46 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 delivering a letter to Barbara, and saying as he went 
 in: "Here's a love-letter for you, Barbara." 
 
 "Don't be so silly, Father! More likely a bill," 
 said Barbara. All the same, she flushed as she looked 
 at the handwriting, and slipped the letter into the 
 pocket of her overall. 
 
 Some time, however, had to elapse before she opened 
 it, but at length in the cool solitude of the bathroom 
 when she was polishing brass taps, the opportunity 
 arrived, and she sat on the bath edge to peruse the 
 following epistle 
 
 "DEAR Miss BARBARA, 
 
 I am so very glad to hear you have come 
 back. If I can possibly get away I will call early this 
 afternoon on the chance of rinding you in. It seems 
 such ages since I had a talk with you alone. 
 "Yours very sincerely, 
 
 "FRANK R. GARRET." 
 
 It was not impassioned, but Barbara's face, bent over 
 it in the diluted light which fell through the thick 
 window, was awed and wide-eyed; and Elsie, peering 
 in at the door as she passed silently on the carpet 
 outside, was moved to stand still and call out 
 
 "Goodness ! What a subject for a Christmas Annual 
 Supplement, entitled 'His Letter/ or 'Shall I; or shall 
 I not?'" 
 
 Barbara started and folded up the letter. 
 
 "Don't be an idiot!" she said sharply. "I do wish 
 you would mind your own business. It's horrid, the 
 way you poke and pry into everything." 
 
 Elsie laughed shrilly but good-naturedly.
 
 A DAY IN THE AVENUE 47 
 
 "Come, Barbie," she said, "don't get shirty because 
 I interrupted you reading a note from Frank Garret. 
 I only saw the envelope, but I know just what's inside; 
 tepid pleasure in Miss Barbara's return and a promise 
 to come and see her soon. Bah! / could show him 
 how! He's what I call the Cautious Kipper, and 
 you're the Willing Winkle." She laughed once more, 
 then added in a different tone: "I suppose he wants 
 to take you on again now you are on the spot. Don't 
 do it, Barbie, old girl. If it was me I'd see him jolly 
 hemmed first." 
 
 "I don't know what you mean," said Barbara. "You 
 read far too many novels and get your head filled with 
 nonsense. Please go and get your milk; it is eleven 
 o'clock." 
 
 But though Barbara could dismiss her sister with 
 dignity, she felt even less disposed than before to tell 
 the household that Frank Garret might be coming to 
 call. She could bear the suspense of that waiting 
 herself, but not if it were shared by a jeering Elsie and 
 a mother anxious lest she should be hurt or disap- 
 pointed. One was as bad as the other in her present 
 frame of mind, and she worked herself up into a 
 fever of expectation, which caused her literally to feel 
 sick by the time she had successfully manoeuvred 
 Elsie upstairs, Mrs. Simpson on to the back-room 
 sofa, and Mr. Simpson unwillingly into the back 
 garden. 
 
 At last she stood alone by the kitchen table, ironing 
 pocket handkerchiefs. The house was very still ; Elsie 
 lay on her bed resting her weak back and devouring 
 books as usual, while Mrs. Simpson had fallen asleep 
 after her disturbed night.
 
 48 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 Then a bell sounded faintly in the kitchen and 
 Barbara glanced at the trembling indicator on the wall 
 as if it were a writing of Fate. But her feet seemed 
 weighted with lead as she softly opened the kitchen 
 door and went down the passage. She wanted to see 
 him and yet she wanted to run away. That under- 
 lined "alone" seemed to be alive before her. Now that 
 the moment was perhaps coming, of which she had 
 dreamed with such shy rapture since she was eighteen, 
 she felt unable to face it. Her eyes were dilated and 
 her hand shook as she opened the door. 
 
 "Oh! Is it you? Will you come in?" she said 
 nervously, scarcely looking at him. 
 
 "You got my letter all right, then?" . 
 
 "Oh yes." 
 
 He stood smiling at her from his great height with 
 his handsome face bent towards her and his fine, dark 
 eyes looking into her blue ones. The faint lines which 
 the vague girlish passions he had roused and left 
 unsatisfied had traced round her fresh mouth were 
 visible in the early afternoon light. He had a moment's 
 thought that she had "gone off." Then she flushed 
 under his gaze and he thought her prettier than he had 
 remembered. 
 
 "Let us go into the garden," he said with sudden 
 ardour. "We shall be by ourselves there. I want to 
 see you alone." 
 
 She glanced at him hesitating. 
 
 "If you really. . . . But Father is in the garden." 
 
 "Oh, that won't do then." He paused, touching her 
 sleeve and smiling, very sure of himself. "I say, 
 Barbara, surely there's some place in the house ? . . . 
 Think a bit."
 
 A DAY IN THE AVENUE 49 
 
 She looked up at him, her eyes asking questions 
 without her knowledge. Was it true what Elsie had 
 said? Or perhaps he was really going to propose to 
 her just because he had had his fling and wanted to 
 settle down? She turned slowly away from the door. 
 "Well . . . I'm in the kitchen ironing handkerchiefs. 
 Only it's awfully hot in there." 
 
 He closed the front door softly and pressed her arm 
 as they went down the passage. She withdrew a little 
 and he pressed nearer, seeing in her movement the 
 innocent freshness which had always appealed to him 
 in her. 
 
 "Hush!" he whispered, more for the sake of whis- 
 pering into her pretty ear under the brown wave of 
 shining hair than anything else. "Tread quietly, 
 Barbara. I don't want them to hear." 
 
 "They'll only think you are Father's collars from 
 the wash," said Barbara soberly. 
 
 She was still in that odd frame of mind. The 
 moment towards which all her girl's dreams had 
 tended was almost here; Frank was going to tell 
 her he loved her; and yet she did not feel as if the 
 heavens were opening. Suddenly, on the threshold 
 of the kitchen, she turned round. "No. Don't let 
 us go in there. It is too hot. We'll go into the 
 drawing-room." 
 
 He put his arm tightly round her and said rather 
 breathlessly : "If you won't come I'll make you. Shall 
 I? Shall I?" 
 
 She could feel his breath on her cheek. 
 
 "I can't move if you hold me like that let 
 me go." 
 
 They stood facing each other now in the warm
 
 50 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 kitchen with the door closed. He put his arm about 
 her again, touching her elbow gently. 
 
 "Did I knock it against the door-post? I wouldn't 
 hurt you for the world, girlie." 
 
 She shook her head without speaking. 
 
 "You like it," he murmured very low. "Whisper, 
 Barbara; did you like it?" 
 
 She broke away from him again. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know! I don't know!" she said, half 
 crying. 
 
 "Silly little girl! What is there to cry about?" he 
 said. "Come here !" He caught her to him and held 
 her fast, looking down into her upturned face. Then 
 he suddenly bent his head and kissed her passionately 
 on the lips. 
 
 "Oh! let me go," she murmured faintly. "I don't 
 like it." She paused. "I hate it!" 
 
 "Sweetest, you'll get over that. It's because I am 
 the first. I've upset you. But I wouldn't have you 
 otherwise for the world," he said. 
 
 She pushed him away and sat down by the ironing 
 board, leaning her forehead on her hands. 
 
 "No no. It's not that, Frank. I don't know what 
 it is." She lifted her head and looked at him with 
 dishevelled hair and those faint lines round her mouth 
 deepened; her blue eyes were black with the intensity 
 of her emotion. She had the air of some distraught 
 and tragic woman who sees her dearest treasure 
 putting out from the shore and is powerless to utter 
 the word that would hold it back. "I only know that 
 if I really loved you, I shouldn't have to get used to 
 you kissing me. I should like it now." 
 
 "But, Barbara it seems a caddish thing to say I
 
 A DAY IN THE AVENUE 51 
 
 haven't been able to help seeing that you were fond of 
 me. You can't suddenly stop, after all these years, 
 just because I kissed you. The thing's simply not 
 comprehensible." 
 
 "I know. I can't understand it myself," said 
 Barbara hopelessly. Then with a sudden onrush of 
 feeling she realised with him the utter incomprehensi- 
 bility of this end to the dreams of her young girlhood. 
 "If any one had told me. . . ." 
 
 "You don't mean to say that you don't care for me 
 after all?" exclaimed Garret. "Then all I can say is, 
 I think you have behaved disgracefully. You always 
 led me to suppose you cared for me." 
 
 "I did. I am sure I did," said Barbara. 
 
 "Then what earthly reason " 
 
 "I haven't one." 
 
 He began to walk agitatedly up and down the 
 kitchen. 
 
 "I suppose you have heard about my cousin's 
 money? I am now very well off, and in a position to 
 marry at last. And the moment I am in that position, 
 I come to you. I couldn't do more. No man could. 
 I can offer you everything that my wife ought to 
 have." 
 
 "I'm so sorry," said Barbara, leaning once more on 
 her hands. "Oh! it's dreadful! It's dreadful! But 
 I don't want you. I can't marry you." 
 
 "I have a right to some explanation after all these 
 years." 
 
 "I know you have." She groped desperately for 
 words in which to express herself. He had a right to 
 that knowledge floating vaguely in the back of her 
 mind if she could only get hold of it.
 
 52 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "Then you don't mean to say you never have cared 
 for me ?" he demanded. 
 
 "No. I couldn't say such a thing. I fell in love 
 with you at my first dance and I've never cared for 
 another man since. But now . . ." She paused, 
 still groping. "I believe I must have waited too 
 long. . . ." She paused again: "Oh, Frank! You 
 don't know what it is for a girl, having to hide 
 everything up from everybody, and so ashamed 
 of being the one to care most no man ever can 
 know." 
 
 "So that's it!" He drew a breath of relief to 
 think it was only wounded pride after all which had 
 prompted her refusal. "Why, my dearest little girl, 
 I've wanted to propose to you dozens of times. I only 
 refrained because I had made up my mind never to 
 marry until I was in a position to give my wife every 
 comfort. We should neither of us have been happy 
 in a small house in a side street with one grubby 
 maidservant." 
 
 "Happy! Oh, Frank!" ,said Barbara. Then she 
 began to weep bitterly, not for the present but for that 
 vanished time when she would have shared a hovel 
 with him and thought it Paradise. 
 
 "Then what is the matter?" he demanded, naturally 
 exasperated. 
 
 She wiped her eyes and said, struggling desperately 
 to express what she felt, for his sake: "It's all those 
 years ... I think they did something to me . . . 
 You know how they say in Flodmouth you're 'past' 
 your meals when you have waited so long that you 
 can't eat anything? Well, I I think I must be past
 
 A DAY IN THE AVENUE 53 
 
 your love, Frank. I wanted it so long. And now it's 
 come, I can't take it. I don't want it any more." 
 
 "But this is senseless," said Frank. "Do you 
 realise that you are ruining my happiness and your own 
 for a mere fancy? Come, be reasonable, Barbara." 
 
 "I am," wept Barbara. ' "That's just what I am. 
 I wish I were not. I don't love you any more in the 
 way you mean. I can't marry you." 
 
 "But why?" persisted he. 
 
 She looked round the kitchen as if some further 
 argument might be written on the walls, then let her 
 hands drop hopelessly in her lap. 
 
 "I wonder if I got over you when I was nursing in 
 Bournemouth and didn't find it out until I saw you 
 again. I worked so awfully hard there that I hadn't 
 time to think about anything in the day, and at night 
 I slept like a log. I don't know !" 
 
 "Well, I think I have been abominably " began 
 
 Garret, when Mrs. Simpson's slow footsteps sounded 
 in the passage outside. "There's your mother!" 
 
 "Yes. Don't you want to see her ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Then come out this way." 
 
 She ran through the scullery and he followed her. 
 The door banged with a sound of empty finality, and 
 Barbara whose soul was somehow peculiarly attuned 
 to the meaning of sounds came back into the kitchen 
 and faced her mother. 
 
 "Well, has the woman brought the collars?" said 
 Mrs. Simpson. 
 
 "No." Barbara paused. "It was not the collars, 
 Mother." 
 
 "Who came then?"
 
 54 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "Frank Garret." 
 
 "What!" cried Mrs. Simpson. "Frank Garret in 
 the kitchen! Why didn't you bring him into the 
 room ?" 
 
 "He wanted to see me by myself." 
 
 Mrs. Simpson looked eagerly at her girl her 
 beloved girl for whom she so passionately desired 
 happiness. But she said nothing. 
 
 "Mother, he asked me to marry him." 
 
 "Dearest, I'm so glad," said Mrs. Simpson, restrain- 
 ing the words of love she knew her daughter did not 
 want just then, and forcing herself to stand quietly 
 waiting. 
 
 "There's nothing to be glad about. I refused 
 him." 
 
 "Refused him!" echoed Mrs. Simpson stupidly. 
 "Why, I always thought " 
 
 "So did I. But I found out I didn't." 
 
 They looked at each other. Then Mrs. Simpson 
 kissed her Barbara's soft cheek once and drew away. 
 
 "Are you sure, dear?" she said gently. 
 
 "Quite, quite sure, Mother." 
 
 "Then what are you crying for?" 
 
 "Because . . . because I don't love him any more." 
 And this time, of her own accord, she threw her arms 
 round her mother's neck and wept on that kind shoulder 
 as she had not done since she was little. 
 
 But very soon she lifted up her head and wiped her 
 eyes, saying briskly: "Time to get tea ready. You 
 go back to the dining-room, Mother, and I'll bring tea 
 in, in five minutes." 
 
 Mrs. Simpson hesitated a moment, then smiled her 
 pretty, timid smile at Barbara and went out of the
 
 A DAY IN THE AVENUE 55 
 
 kitchen, though she longed to remain and talk it all 
 over. But to her quick, sensitive mind Barbara's desire 
 to avoid further confidences had been quite as clear as 
 if it had been spoken aloud. 
 
 The girls had gone to bed and Mr. and Mrs. Simpson 
 were alone in the back room. There was a long silence, 
 during which Mrs. Simpson now and then looked at 
 her husband over the top of her newspaper. At last 
 she said : 
 
 "Well, Sam, what is it?" 
 
 "Nothing. I don't know what you mean," said Mr. 
 
 Simpson irritably. "Seems to me the Russians " 
 
 And he returned to his paper. 
 
 "I'm afraid you are disappointed about Barbara 
 refusing Frank Garret. So am I." She sighed. "It 
 would be a great thing to feel the girls had somebody 
 to look after them in these uncertain times, in case 
 anything happened to us." 
 
 "Oh, I don't worry so much about that," said Mr. 
 Simpson shortly. "After all, girls can fend for them- 
 selves now-a-days." 
 
 "They can while they're young," said Mrs. Simpson. 
 "However, I wouldn't for the world have Barbara 
 marry a man she did not love." 
 
 "No no ! Pity it has happened so, that's all," said 
 Mr. Simpson. 
 
 There followed another silence, disturbed only by 
 the rustling of newspapers. Mrs. Simpson again 
 broke it. 
 
 "See anybody when you were out after tea?" 
 
 "Yes. I saw Walters." (Walters being the clergy-
 
 56 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 man of the parish, whose son Ted had been Jim's great 
 friend in their boyhood.) 
 
 "Any news of Ted?" 
 
 "Oh, I didn't mean to tell you to-night ?" 
 
 Mrs. Simpson's eyes contracted with that nervous 
 dread of sorrow which comes in these days to people 
 who have suffered greatly and are in bad health ; then 
 she pulled herself together to bear what was coming 
 and her pupils dilated again. 
 
 "Has he fallen?" 
 
 "No. But I don't know that it isn't worse. He's 
 wounded and a prisoner in the hands of the 
 Germans." 
 
 "Oh ! Poor Mrs. Walters ! Poor things !" said Mrs. 
 Simpson, wiping her eyes. 
 
 Mr. Simpson grunted. 
 
 "I said I'd better not tell you to-night You won't 
 sleep." 
 
 "What's that matter ?" 
 
 Silence again : the clock ticked so loudly. 
 
 "Well, our being down in the dumps won't help 
 matters," said Mr. Simpson, turning his paper. 
 
 "I know. But all these young lives. Sam, I can't 
 understand it. All the mothers praying . . . If I 
 were God . . ." Her incoherent words trailed off 
 into a sigh. 
 
 Mr. Simpson put his paper down on his knee and 
 looked straight at her with troubled eyes gleaming 
 through his spectacles. 
 
 "Harriet, I sometimes begin to wonder if there is a 
 God," he said in a low voice. 
 
 "You can't help feeling like that," said Mrs. Simp- 
 son, almost whispering. "All these Flodmouth boys
 
 A DAY IN THE AVENUE 57 
 
 full of spirits and promise that we've known all our 
 lives. . . . But we wouldn't have kept our boy back, 
 Sam." 
 
 "No. His country was attacked and he had to 
 defend her, same as he would you." 
 
 They sat on either side of the fireless grate, most 
 desolate, as if a wind blew across them from a place in 
 which there was no hope. . . . But this was the very 
 first time in their whole lives that they had really talked 
 of God together. 
 
 Then the clock struck. Mr. Simpson jumped up 
 from his seat and flung down his newspaper. 
 
 "Dammit!" he said. "The brutes have killed my 
 boy and my business; they shan't kill my faith in 
 God!" 
 
 It was after midnight, and every one was in bed at 
 No. 28 Chestnut Avenue, but important things in the 
 history of the souls under that roof were being enacted. 
 
 Gradually, the rush and clang of the city had died 
 down and ceased to accompany their thoughts, but 
 there was still the occasional high shriek of the engines 
 over the wall at the end of the Avenue, the dull sound 
 of shouting, the reverberating footstep of some belated 
 person coming home. 
 
 Each of the Simpsons slept in odd snatches, and 
 woke every time to find themselves whirling round, 
 round, round, on the unresting wheel of thought most 
 sleepers know that waking, and the feel of the wheel 
 beginning to turn, turn, turn again, with an ache in 
 every revolution. 
 
 Thus Mr. Simpson, lying so quiet by his wife's side, 
 was obliged to clutch that dizzying wheel. Words
 
 58 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 flashed by him in the darkness. Pain . . . pain . . . 
 the young lives. . . . We must stick it out to the 
 end, or they're all wasted. . . . He turned over, 
 trying to find ease, but never for a moment getting 
 free. 
 
 And Mrs. Simpson by his side, seeming so quiet 
 that he thought her asleep. She too hung in a sort of 
 agony on that wheel, with the sweat breaking out upon 
 lips and forehead that she dared not wipe away lest 
 her husband should feel her movement and be troubled 
 at her wakefulness. Round, round, each time a deeper 
 agony . . . Men suffering, lads lying dead on forlorn 
 battle-fields . . . No! No! Surely not there. . . . 
 O God, help me to see the dead where they really are ; 
 they are . . . safe happy out of it all ... God 
 help me if there is a God ! 
 
 So, swinging on that terrible wheel, dazed, almost 
 despairing, Mrs. Simpson lifted up her soul. 
 
 No comfort came. There seemed to be no one at all 
 in the dark void to which she looked. Then, gradually, 
 after a long while, she began to feel a response. There 
 was a lightening of her despair. New courage began 
 to flow along some unseen channel into her soul. She 
 felt the comfort of God though she could not grasp His 
 Presence. 
 
 There is no explaining such an experience: only 
 Mrs. Simpson fell asleep as sure of God as she 
 was of Mr. Simpson snoring slightly on the next 
 pillow. 
 
 Barbara also, in a midnight hour which seemed 
 endless to her, awoke to find herself clutching the mad- 
 dening wheel. Round, round, round it went: though 
 her thoughts seemed light and trivial enough when
 
 A DAY IN THE AVENUE 59 
 
 compared with those in the room just below. But 
 the faith of youth in the supreme importance of love 
 alone keeps the world sweet enough for youth to bloom 
 in at present, so her thoughts mattered after all. Do 
 I love him? I must ... I did so long long . . . 
 Oh, that kiss . . . (A burying of the face in the pillow, 
 and a rush of unrecognised emotions.) Oh, I don't 
 know : I don't know ! 
 
 Elsie, on the other bed, kept awake by the pain in 
 her weak back, stared starkly up into the ceiling. But 
 she was the happiest of the four people in the house 
 as she murmured a verse which she had just composed : 
 for though the lines were crude and school-girlish 
 enough they made her free of that country which is a 
 refuge from life. She glowed as she lay there, pinched 
 and sallow-faced and full of pain, with that joy of 
 expressing herself in words which is no more to be 
 explained than any other emotion. 
 
 But at breakfast next morning the Simpsons bore 
 no trace whatever of the experiences which they had 
 passed through in the night. Barbara poured out the 
 coffee with the calm, bright face of morning girl- 
 hood which hides so many things, and Mrs. Simpson 
 acknowledged that she had slept rather badly, while 
 Mr. Simpson was very cheerful, rubbing his hands 
 and making little jokes. 
 
 Over the breakfast table they talked of the approach- 
 ing Bellerby wedding, and of the war news and the 
 weather. 
 
 "Pass the butter," said Mr. Simpson. 
 
 And that started the old argument as to whether
 
 60 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 margarine were pronounced like Margaret or like 
 Marjory. 
 
 It would seem incredible were it not so common 
 that each of the four Simpsons had but just come back 
 from those forlorn and desert places where human 
 souls wander alone in the night.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 A SOLDIER 
 
 ARBARA and Elsie were walking in the long road 
 where the trams run when they encountered Mr. 
 Frank Garret, and the greeting on both sides was so 
 constrained that a sharp younger sister, after passing 
 on, inquired at once 
 
 "Whatever's up now ?" 
 
 Barbara, brightly red like a rose in a shower, said 
 with abruptness that nothing was up, and that she 
 was sick of such nonsense . . . time Elsie went back 
 to school ! 
 
 All the same, the facts of the case could no longer 
 be concealed, and a pledge of secrecy seemed less 
 dangerous than a refusal to give desired information. 
 
 "Only, I won't hear another word about it," said 
 Barbara. 
 
 But when night came she went upstairs to find Elsie, 
 of course, sitting on the side of her bed, with dark 
 eyes flaming like lamps under a roughened mop of 
 dark hair: for the girl was all afire with vicarious 
 romance, despite the girding and critical spirit which 
 kept her from dreaming precocious dreams on her own 
 account. 
 
 "Oh, Barbara," she said, as soon as the door was 
 closed, and speaking in italics as usual : "I can't help 
 
 61
 
 62 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 feeling thrilled at your refusing Frank Garret. What 
 did he say ? Did he go down on his knees ? I suppose 
 you refused him just to pay him out for dangling such 
 a long time, and keeping you on a bit of string. But 
 what shall you do if he doesn't ask you again?" 
 
 "Don't talk rot. We no longer live in the dark 
 ages of woman when three Noes meant one Yes," 
 said Barbara. "You get off to bed and let me do the 
 same." 
 
 "I think you are very mean," said Elsie, reluctantly 
 beginning to undress. Then she reflected that Barbara 
 was probably keeping her romance sacred in the virgin 
 recesses of her own heart vide a novel devoured on 
 the previous day. 
 
 But in any case Barbara was certainly disappoint- 
 ing, for she did none of those things which Elsie's idea 
 of romance demanded. She neither leaned from the 
 bedroom window gazing pensively in the direction of 
 the suburb where Frank Garret resided, nor did she 
 take a long time in brushing her hair while staring into 
 the looking-glass. On the contrary, she made as much 
 haste as possible, splashed herself at the wash-stand, 
 prayed with a serene and obtrusive absorption and 
 jumped into bed saying she was dog-tired and should 
 go to sleep at once. 
 
 "Oh, very well," said Elsie, also kneeling down and 
 taking refuge in the Courts of the Infinite. 
 
 In a short time a very short time she rose from 
 her knees. A gentle snore proceeded from the other 
 bed. Elsie bit her lips and frowned angrily, but she 
 continued to undress in silence, glancing every now 
 and then at a bright brown plait and a piece of white- 
 clad shoulder. At last she approached the bed, when
 
 A SOLDIER 63 
 
 another snore, rather louder, greeted her. Then she 
 seized hold of the shoulder and shook it fiercely, her 
 hair hanging round her in a black cloud and her great 
 eyes shining through. 
 
 "Stop that!" she said. "If you won't talk to me 
 about your private affairs, say so straight out. I don't 
 care. I don't want people to confide in me who don't 
 want to. But I won't be deceived by snores that 
 wouldn't deceive a child in arms, snored by people who 
 never snore. I won't ! So there !" She broke off and 
 choked. "You think it's just curiosity. It isn't. It's 
 it's because I'm so fond of you. I want you so to be 
 happy, Barbie." 
 
 The snoring abruptly ceased and Barbara sat up. 
 "I never meant to be horrid, Elsie. The only thing 
 is ... I simply can't talk about it." After a moment 
 or two, she added softly : "Good-night, old Elsie." 
 
 Elsie crossed the room and blew out the light. 
 "Well, you can go to sleep now," she remarked. "But 
 don't snore this time or I shall tell Frank Garret that 
 you are a confirmed snorer. Then the game really will 
 be up. Good-night." 
 
 "Good-night," echoed Barbara, almost meekly, 
 burying her head beneath the bed-clothes away from 
 this terribly articulate young sister. 
 
 Next morning she drew up the blind and spoke joy- 
 'fully to Elsie, who was still in bed. 
 
 "I say! Glorious day for the wedding." 
 
 And all up and down the Avenue, through the smoke 
 
 haze which had a delicate, pearly loveliness quite 
 
 different from the blue and gold of the morning beyond 
 
 the town, these words or similar ones were being
 
 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 spoken. For the women's hearts turned through all 
 the sadness of life now to the thought of Blanche 
 Bellerby's happy wedding, as you may see flowers in 
 a dark place yearn towards the sun. 
 
 So, at the appointed hour, those who were free began 
 to move in twos and threes towards the dirty, yellow- 
 brick church. Workers in uniform, or in the shabby 
 gowns they had worn while packing for prisoners of 
 war, hurried in to mingle oddly enough with the last 
 year's finery of the rest ; a few women in deep mourn- 
 ing made black patches among the goldish pitch-pine 
 pews that stood nearly empty at the back of the church, 
 but even they had a sort of reflected sunshine on their 
 faces. . . . Here were hope and youth and love after 
 all still alive in the world then. They greeted the 
 sight of it as one does the first crocus after a long, sad 
 winter, with a tightening of the heart-strings and yet a 
 sudden rush of joy. 
 
 It was thus little Mrs. Du Caine felt, as she watched 
 the bridegroom waiting, and thought of her husband 
 in France and of her own wedding. Near her were 
 Barbara and Elsie and Mrs. Wilson, and they all 
 whispered about the bridegroom, whose clean-cut, 
 nervous profile was outlined strongly against the pale 
 wall of the church. 
 
 "They say he has been awarded the Military 
 Cross." 
 
 "Any amount of money, I hear." 
 
 "Yes: and the Elliotts are very well connected. 
 Blanche would never have come across him in peace 
 times, of course." 
 
 "Well, I call it a fine face."
 
 A SOLDIER 65 
 
 They paused, watching him move nearer the altar 
 steps. 
 
 "Fancy," murmured Elsie, with intensity, "any 
 one even looking like that about Blanche! Blanche 
 Bellerby, that used to call names over the wall and 
 crack nuts with her teeth. Love must be a queer 
 thing." 
 
 "Hush!" said Barbara, "here is the bridegroom's 
 mother coming in. I know her by sight from that 
 picture in the Princess. She turned her country house 
 into a hospital and acts as Commandant, though they 
 say she spent most of her days in bed before the 
 war." 
 
 "Oh, lots like her. Wonderful, isn't it?" 
 
 "How lovely she must have been," murmured 
 Barbara, as the tall, frail-looking woman went past 
 them up the aisle with her thoughts so fixed on her 
 son that the other people in the church were plainly 
 invisible to her. 
 
 Elsie leaned close to Barbara, her dark eyes shining 
 in her little, gaunt face. 
 
 "Now I see what it is!" she whispered eagerly. 
 "She's given him Blanche just as she'd give him the 
 heart out of her body if he wanted it. Poor mother! 
 Poor mother! I do wish she'd got somebody better 
 than Blanche." . . . 
 
 "Don't be silly ! Blanche'll turn out all right," said 
 Barbara. 
 
 Then Mrs. Wilson said in her ponderous way 
 
 "I dislike these hurried war-weddings. I cannot 
 understand how any mother " 
 
 "Oh," interrupted Mrs. Du Caine, "here she comes! 
 Here she comes!"
 
 66 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 And as Blanche came up the aisle on the arm of her 
 most presentable male relative, wearing the beautiful 
 veil and necklace of pearls that Mrs. Elliott had worn 
 on her own wedding-day, all the hard thoughts which 
 the onlookers might have had about the bride fled away 
 for the time being, and those kind wishes which the 
 wedding angels bring were hovering very tenderly 
 over the young soldier and the girl by his side when 
 the service began. 
 
 As Barbara sat looking at them with wide eyes and 
 a bright flush on her cheeks, she heard a little move- 
 ment and saw Frank Garret enter a pew close by. 
 For a moment she felt the old nervous beating of the 
 pulses the old, half-sickening: "Will he speak to 
 me? Won't he? Oh, I wonder if that girl he is near 
 will keep him?" Then it all cleared away as if a fresh 
 wind had passed over some stagnant place; and she 
 knew, with a sudden sense of freedom, that she didn't 
 care a button whether he sought her out or not. She 
 had truly during that year of hard work and grim 
 realities at Bournemouth "got over him." 
 
 She listened to the words of the Marriage Service, 
 which have for the ears of a girl like Barbara an eternal 
 newness and beauty, and remembered with a sort of 
 wonder how she had sat behind Frank Garret at 
 another wedding five years ago. Then the whole 
 church suddenly seemed to swim in a golden mist, 
 while she clung half-fainting to the edge of the pew 
 before her and all because she had seen a vision of 
 herself standing in white with Frank before that same 
 altar. 
 
 ': That was indeed her girl's waking to the physical 
 side of love, though she remained even now unaware
 
 A SOLDIER 67 
 
 of the fact; for her delicate young dreams had always 
 been suffused with a sort of glory haze which left 
 outlines indefinite. 
 
 Now she glanced at Frank's fine figure in front 
 and the few silver hairs at the side of his head, which 
 only increased his good looks, just showed from where 
 she sat. He turned his head. She noticed that his 
 neck bulged in a red fold over his collar at the back. 
 
 The long habit of worship held. She drew back 
 startled from such blasphemy. But immediately her 
 spirit used its new freedom and she said to herself: 
 "It does bulge ! it does! How could I not have noticed 
 it before? I must have been blind." 
 
 Then the short service was finished, and bride and 
 bridegroom came down the aisle man and wife. But 
 the young soldier saw nobody in the church save 
 Blanche : not even his mother, who leaned f orward 
 from her pew to smile at him with such love and wistful 
 tenderness in her white face that Elsie muttered, half 
 aloud 
 
 "Look, you fool! Look! You're not going to get 
 that any more in this world, even if you marry fifty 
 Blanche Bellerbys." 
 
 "Hush, Elsie!" said Barbara. 
 
 "I don't care ! I could murder Blanche if she doesn't 
 let him go on thinking her that at any rate, till he 
 gets back to France. Oh, Barbie, I do so hope she 
 will!" 
 
 So it was all over, and Barbara bowed to Frank as 
 he came out, and most wonderful! most strange 
 was not in a fever of anxiety lest he should fail to 
 catch her up 'and walk home with her. She even said 
 to herself, "Am I a beastly flirt that only wants to
 
 68 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 make sure of a man and then has no further use for 
 him?" But glancing back at the dim, flowery altar 
 from the light doorway, she knew it was not that: 
 she had prayed so often amid the excitement of heat 
 and music at a Sunday night service here, that he 
 might truly love her. 
 
 She felt a wistful pity for the girl she was then as 
 she passed in the porch without speaking. And yet 
 they might have been coming out husband and wife 
 together. 
 
 But it was true enough, as Miss Felling said in walk- 
 ing home, that a wedding always leaves a blank feeling 
 behind; something seems about to happen which 
 doesn't; so a deserted greyness with an illusive scent 
 of orange-blossoms in the air haunted Barbara for the 
 rest of the day. 
 
 This state of mind drove her out restlessly when her 
 work was done, to call upon Miss Felling. The room 
 where they sat looked out upon the dry road steeped in 
 late sunshine and the first strawberry barrow of the 
 year went past: "Strawberry! Fresh strawberry!" 
 Fruit barrows were rare in the Avenue now, and this 
 one seemed to Barbara like a long echo from those 
 past summers which now appeared to have been all 
 strawberries and tennis and careless young men in 
 white flannels, with a blue and gold seaside holiday 
 planted somewhere in the heart of them. 
 
 Then Mrs. Wilson came out from the house opposite 
 to buy fruit from the barrow with a bowl in her hand, 
 and if she did it with rather the air of a princess going 
 a-milking, and did murmur to herself that talisman: 
 "In war-time . . ." which has gone so far in setting 
 the middle-class free from a thousand little snobberies,
 
 A SOLDIER 69 
 
 she bought fruit off a common barrow unashamed, all 
 the same. 
 
 The Bellerbys' house lay closed and quiet while the 
 family of the bride caroused mildly at the hotel, but a 
 bit of white flower drifted up the road among the dust. 
 A soldier coming along trod on it, and then glanced 
 down, saying to himself: "A wedding in the street!" 
 But not kindly, rather as if fools must be fools. He 
 looked at the numbers of the houses as he came along ! 
 and Miss Felling and Barbara watched him idly, saying 
 to each other 
 
 "I wonder who that wounded soldier wants ?" 
 
 "Yes. Well, he evidently knows the number." 
 
 "He's crossing over." 
 
 They leaned forward to see better. 
 
 "Goodness, Miss Felling, he's coming here!" 
 
 "Some message from the Hospital, I dare say," said 
 Miss Felling, rolling up her knitting. 
 
 "I'll go to the door," said Barbara. 
 
 She opened the door and stood in the gloom of the 
 passage. Outside, in the full light, stood a very thin, 
 weather-beaten soldier of middle height in his ill- 
 fitting blue garments of glory. 
 
 "You ... I am not speaking to Miss Felling?" 
 he said. 
 
 "No. Do you want to see her? Will you come 
 in?" 
 
 "Thank you." And he entered, despite the stiffness 
 of his left arm, with an extraordinary lightness and 
 easiness of gait, as if every muscle were made of steel 
 and running smoothly. 
 
 "Lovely weather," said Barbara, going on before 
 him.
 
 TO THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 He muttered some unintelligible response, for he 
 was recently home from France, where he had spent 
 over a year practically without speaking to a woman, 
 and he was for the moment overcome by that odd 
 sense of embarrassment which many soldiers know in 
 the presence of a girl after a year's uninterrupted 
 intercourse with their own sex. It is a sensation which 
 wears off almost at once, but it was very disconcerting 
 to a man who had been easily used to female society 
 all his life before the war. 
 
 "Oh, have you come from the Hospital?" said Miss 
 Felling. And her directness, and strange to say 
 her nose, almost restored his normal balance. 
 
 "Yes," he said. "I am here for massage and elec- 
 tricity before joining my regiment at Scarcliffe for 
 light duty. I've had a bullet through my left arm." 
 
 There was a pause : at last Miss Felling said, helping 
 him 
 
 "I suppose you have a message for me about 
 the strawberries? I promised to send some to the 
 Hospital." 
 
 "No," said the soldier, "no." 
 
 He was so awkward and the words, "What do you 
 want, then?" hovered so plainly on Miss Felling's lips 
 that Barbara said quickly, "I like strawberries, don't 
 you?" her soft, clear voice taking on that deep note 
 which always came into it when she was very anxious 
 to be kind. 
 
 "I'm looking for a Miss Nelson," he said, then 
 gathering himself together, "Lillie Nelson. I think 
 she once lived with you." He paused, glanced at 
 Barbara and added with a rise of colour, "My name's 
 Brooke." 
 
 I
 
 A SOLDIER 71 
 
 "Brooke !" cried Miss Felling, jumping up. "You're 
 not dead ! Oh, poor Lillie " 
 
 "I'm not the man who married Lillie Nelson, I'm 
 his brother." 
 
 Miss Felling sat down again, feeling rather shaken.. 
 Barbara gazed at Brooke with flushed cheeks and 
 anxious eyes. 
 
 "Have you come about the baby?" she said, won- 
 dering at the evident good breeding in this brother of 
 a private soldier of the old army who had taken two 
 wives at once. "Little Kitchener, you know?" 
 
 "Little Kitchener!" said Brooke, staring at her. 
 "Oh, you mean Lillie's kid? She's called him that?" 
 
 "No," said Miss Felling, "we did. Lillie left him 
 in a hamper on my doorstep without a name, and then 
 she disappeared again. So I took over the responsi- 
 bility. Somebody had to. You couldn't let the poor 
 little thing be neglected." 
 
 Brooke looked down, twirling his cap in his hand. 
 
 "It was hard on you. You've been very good. It's 
 time I came and took on my brother's responsibilities. 
 You've no right to be burdened," he said, bringing out 
 the words with an effort. 
 
 "Well," said Miss Felling, "your brother is gone 
 now. No use saying anything." . . . Then she added 
 in a different tone: "Have you heard from Lillie?" 
 
 "No. I have not the least idea where she is. She 
 has evidently moved. That's why I came here." 
 
 "Then how did you get my address?" 
 
 "My brother gave me it. He said you would be 
 sure to know where she was if I couldn't find her in 
 their old lodgings." 
 
 "Have you never seen her?"
 
 72 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "Never," said Brooke. "Fact is, my brother and 
 I had not met for ten years until " he paused. 
 
 "Until when?" said Miss Felling sharply. 
 
 "Well, it was in the great hall at Rouen. We 
 chanced to get on two stretchers side by side. Things 
 like that are always happening in this war." There 
 was another pause. Barbara leaned forward with 
 shining eyes, but he did not notice her. "My brother 
 died during the night. But we had some talk first. 
 He said Lillie was a good sort, and there was going to 
 be a kid, and he seemed a bit worried. Not very, 
 
 because when you get to where he was So he 
 
 gave me your address, and I said if I got home, I'd do 
 what I could." 
 
 "Anyway, your brother was dying for his country," 
 said Barbara softly. - 
 
 Brooke glanced at her with indifference; that other 
 scene came like a curtain let down between them. 
 But his simplicity seemed to make them all oddly 
 simple. 
 
 "Yes. You can't do more than that," said Miss 
 Felling. "Would you like to see the child? I can 
 arrange to let you see it to-morrow. It is with a 
 woman quite near." 
 
 "If you will be so kind." He paused. "Who's 
 paying?" he said abruptly. 
 
 , "Oh, well ... I am. Quite all right," muttered 
 Miss Felling, embarrassed as ever by her own good 
 deeds. "Boys wanted for the Empire," she added 
 vaguely, trying to give it an impersonal aspect. 
 
 "You must let me undertake that, Miss Felling," 
 said Brooke. "The greatest part of it looking after 
 the boy and seeing he is properly done to and all that
 
 A SOLDIER 73 
 
 I will leave to you. But you must let me take on the 
 monetary part of the responsibility." 
 
 As Miss Felling glanced at his private's badge and 
 hesitated, he suddenly smiled at her in a way that 
 curiously illumined his dark and ravaged face. It's 
 all right," he said. "I can afford to keep little 
 Kitchener. I had a rotten bad time out in Canada 
 at first; but in the end I made good in a moderate 
 style, that is." 
 
 "Are you a married man yourself, then?" said 
 Miss Felling. 
 
 He paused, looking at her; and his look said as 
 plainly as words: "I would rather not talk of this, 
 but you have earned my confidence." Aloud he said : 
 "I am a widower. I married when I was twenty-two. 
 That's why I went to Canada; to make a home for 
 my wife. I worked the nails off my fingers : then she 
 caught cold, doing the chores in a severe frost, while 
 I was laid up with a sprained knee." 
 
 "How sad!" said Miss Felling. She had to say 
 something, though the words sounded very futile to 
 herself. 
 
 Barbara did not speak. She only turned her eyes 
 from his face lest she should see something there that 
 he would rather hide. 
 
 "I look older than I am," he continued. "I came 
 at the end of a big family. My father was a country 
 parson on a hundred and eighty a year, and we had 
 to live on that and pretend to keep up a position like 
 the country gentry and doctors, and the parsons with 
 private means. But we were always thankful to cadge 
 a good meal with any of the farmers round, and 
 they knew it. We weren't half educated. Then my
 
 74 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 brother got into trouble and ran away, and enlisted in 
 the Regulars long before the war. I hold no brief for 
 my brother; but with his temperament, I don't think 
 he had much of a chance." 
 
 "No." Miss Felling flushed crimson. Brooke's 
 plain words deeply moved her, and she blurted out, 
 most anxious to do something for the dead man : "You 
 can't blame anybody. You never know what's inside 
 people. If it hadn't been for my nose hedging me 
 round like a barricade against men, I should probably 
 have been a regular high-kicking, champagne-popping 
 bad woman myself. I had it in me, and when I see 
 such-like going past, I always say to myself : 'But for 
 a nose and the grace of God there goes Lotty Felling!' 
 At least," she added truthfully, "in some moods I do." 
 
 "Quite so," said Brooke uncomfortably, and he 
 turned to Barbara: "Do you know Scarcliffe? I am 
 going there soon, I believe." 
 
 "Oh yes. A dear little seaside place," said Bar- 
 bara, falling in hastily into the change of subject. She 
 was thinking about his face, how strangely worn for 
 a young man's, with that mark of a shrapnel wound 
 on his forehead and the deep lines on his cheeks. No 
 one could possibly call him well-preserved. . . . And 
 with that word there floated across Barbara's mind 
 the image of Frank Garret, far less lined and scarred 
 than this man of twenty-eight. "But the Canadians 
 are not at Scarcliffe," she added aloud. 
 
 "No, I am not with them. I came over and joined 
 up in England," he answered ; and with that he rose to 
 depart, standing near the window where the full light 
 fell on his face. Barbara saw that it was even more 
 ravaged than she had thought : he had not been afraid
 
 A SOLDIER 75 
 
 of life, at all events exile, love, marriage, poverty, 
 fighting, pain of the great experiences there only 
 remained death. ... As she looked at his thin, shortish 
 figure in the window, the phrase formed itself, oddly 
 defiant, within her : "Well, he's ready for death !" 
 
 On the top of this, his commonplace, "Then I'll come 
 in to-morrow if I may, Miss Felling, and fix everything 
 up with you," sounded almost incongruous. Then he 
 shook hands with both ladies and went away down the 
 Avenue, an ordinary little blue-suited, wounded soldier, 
 having a firm alertness of step which was yet so unlike 
 Mr. Simpson's cork-like buoyancy. 
 
 Barbara had a chance to compare the two footsteps 
 because the men passed in the Avenue, each deep in 
 his own reflections and unaware of the other. Mr. 
 Simpson afterwards manifested great regret at his 
 absent-mindedness, and said emphatically that Brooke 
 must be a very decent chap. Few men would have 
 gone out of their way to take on such an apparently 
 permanent responsibility as little Kitchener. 
 
 Mrs. Simpson sat in her armchair at the time, hiding 
 her pallor with such a radiance of eager interest that 
 it passed unnoticed. 
 
 "How wonderful the two brothers should come 
 across each other like that," she said. "Amongst all 
 those thousands of men." 
 
 And immediately, for the four Simpsons, the cheer- 
 ful walls of their room dissolved into a great, high, 
 vaulted space, quite different from actual reality and 
 yet wonderfully near to it in another way. A great 
 place filled with pain. . . . 
 
 Elsie first revolted from the vision: it was not 
 there : she was not going to bear it.
 
 76 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "Well, I can't believe they ever could come across 
 each other like that, and I believe it's all a made-up 
 tale. If I were Miss Felling, I should keep an eye on 
 Gladys." 
 
 "It certainly does seem strange that Brooke shonld 
 go out of his way to get mixed up in such an unpleasant 
 affair," said Mr. Simpson. "I can't see that he has 
 any real responsibility, particularly as the brothers 
 had not met for years." 
 
 "Father!" cried Barbara. "You know any man 
 would promise his brother anything at a time like 
 that. It wouldn't matter a toss how long they'd been 
 parted : they'd once been little together." 
 
 "Um !" said Mr. Simpson, sitting down to his news- 
 paper. "We had better wait until to-morrow. Time 
 will show. Perhaps now he has made sure that the child 
 is being properly looked after, he won't turn up again." 
 
 "I'm sure he will, then !" said Barbara hotly. 
 
 Mrs. Simpson glanced at her daughter's flushed 
 cheeks. 
 
 "What sort of looking man is he?" she said, with 
 apparent carelessness. 
 
 "Oh!" Barbara paused, obviously unready with a 
 description. "Well, he is rather short and has a 
 scar on his forehead and looks frightfully worn and 
 weather-beaten." 
 
 "Young?" said Mrs. Simpson. 
 
 "Yes, but he seems much older than he is. He has 
 rather a Canadian accent." 
 
 "Married?" asked Elsie. "But he probably 
 wouldn't tell." 
 
 "Yes; at least he is a widower." 
 
 Mrs. Simpson heaved a little sigh of relief. She so
 
 A SOLDIER 77 
 
 passionately loved her girls that she was over-anxious 
 about every trifle concerning them, though she tried 
 to hide it lest they should be fretted : and she there- 
 fore felt glad to hear this new-comer into Barbara's 
 circle was so obviously unromantic. The brother of 
 Miss Felling's Lillie's bigamous husband might be 
 chivalrous in intent, but a vague prejudice against him 
 lingered in the back of her mind, all the same.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 LITTLE WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS 
 
 NEXT day Barbara was laying the table for the 
 midday meal somewhat listlessly, having reached 
 that stage when all the glamour of a new beginning 
 goes off and only solid reality is left behind. The 
 endless round of domestic duties looked terribly dull 
 and aimless to her at that moment, and she longed to 
 be out in the world among the other women, working 
 and spending, doing something definite for her country 
 or herself. The very fork she was holding would be 
 soiled, washed, placed on the table again, soiled again. 
 
 The sounds of Flodmouth beat monotonously 
 through her head, though she was not conscious of 
 them. With an impatient gesture, as if choking for 
 air, she flung up the window and stood breathing 
 deeply; then she heard her father enter from behind, 
 and her mother immediately followed. She shut the 
 window and took up the tray without speaking, but as 
 she was crossing the room something in her father's 
 appearance struck her as being slightly unusual. He 
 looked jaded and excited and yet flat if such a combi- 
 nation be possible while Mrs. Simpson kept glancing 
 rather anxiously at him from her seat by the empty 
 fire-grate. 
 
 "Well, Father?" she said. 
 
 78
 
 LITTLE WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS 79 
 
 "What's the matter?" said her daughter, more 
 directly. 
 
 "Nothing," said Mr. Simpson. 
 
 "Well, you don't look in very good spirits." 
 
 "On the contrary," said Mr. Simpson, with decision, 
 "I am in very good spirits indeed." He paused. 
 "I've found a job at last." 
 
 "Oh, where? Where?" cried Barbara excitedly, 
 putting down her tray. Then she ran to the room 
 door and called out: "Elsie! Elsie! Father's got 
 something to do." 
 
 As Elsie came running into the room, Mr. Simpson 
 glanced at Mrs. Simpson with the cowardice in his eyes 
 which occasionally attacks all good husbands in the 
 presence of all good wives. He was afraid of what 
 she would say when he told her, because it would be 
 what he so acutely felt. But he only said nonchalantly : 
 "Yes. Wagstaffes have taken me on." 
 
 "What! The office in which you were placed as a 
 boy, before you set up in business for yourself ! How 
 splendid!" said Mrs. Simpson. "But, of course, they 
 would be the very ones to know your true value." 
 
 "Um ! Well, I rather hope not," said Mr. Simpson, 
 
 smiling uneasily. "The screw isn't But I'm so 
 
 dead sick of earning nothing and hanging about the 
 place idle." 
 
 "What are they giving you?" said Elsie; for in 
 the Simpson family everything was open to discussion; 
 there were no mysteries and reserves in it. 
 
 "Well, it sounds very poor," said Mr. Simpson, 
 looking at his wife. "But anything's better than 
 nothing, you know. They're giving me thirty shillings 
 a week."
 
 8o THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "What!" cried Elsie. "Oh, Dad, to a clever busi- 
 ness man like you ! Why, Irene Markham up the street 
 is getting twenty-five, and she's a perfect silly." 
 
 "Of course, Wagstaffes will give you promotion," 
 said Barbara. "Your experience will soon tell, even 
 in a different trade from your own." 
 
 "Oh, no doubt ! No doubt ! I ought to have learned 
 something in my time, but it takes a wise man to know 
 his own father, but a wiser one to know by instinct 
 what's at the bottom of a fruit case." He chuckled 
 anxiously a feeble imitation of his familiar jolly 
 chuckle as he glanced from one to the other : and 
 something in his look and manner made the tears 
 spring to Barbara's eyes. 
 
 "What does it matter what you get, Dad?" she 
 said impulsively. "You are releasing a man to fight 
 for England." 
 
 "That's all very well," said Mrs. Simpson, "but I 
 do think something better might have been found for 
 you, Sam. So many friends as you have in the town." 
 
 Mr. Simpson hesitated, turning from his wife in her 
 nervous agitation to his two daughters, who gazed 
 intently at him, anxious and bright-eyed; then he 
 answered reluctantly 
 
 "I didn't say anything before. I thought I'd wait 
 until I had something to tell. But I have been to a 
 score of offices in Flodmouth." He paused, and added 
 with difficulty, looking down at the carpet : "It wasn't 
 easy . . . old friends . . . cap in hand . . . and me 
 used to taking my place. . . ." He paused once more. 
 "Having had a business of your own goes against 
 you. Men are afraid you won't stand being ordered 
 about."
 
 LITTLE WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS 81 
 
 There was a short silence. Then Barbara said 
 
 "But Mr. Binny knows you so well. Did you try 
 him?" 
 
 "Yes. I went to him yesterday. I kept him for 
 the last because I didn't like . . . our being so inti- 
 mate and all ... I knew he'd make a berth for me 
 if he could." 
 
 "And didn't he? Oh, you never mean to say old 
 Binny turned you down?" cried Elsie; and, pale with 
 vicarious hurt pride and a deeper love for her father 
 than she had been conscious 'of before, she flung her 
 arms about him and half-strangled him in a sudden 
 embrace. "Oh, the pig!" she sobbed. "Oh, the long- 
 legged, shiny-booted, mean-spirited old pig ! I do wish 
 I had him here !" 
 
 Mr. Simpson chuckled, genuinely this time, and 
 disengaged himself; the odious tension of the interview 
 was relieved. 
 
 "Come! Come! I dare say he would wish the 
 same and you can't blame a chap for being particular 
 about his boots, Elsie." 
 
 "Yes, I can. . . . And always a grey tie matching 
 his suit . . . and England's righting for life." 
 
 "You do Binny an injustice, Elsie," said Mr. Simp- 
 son. "He is doing badly in his business and is over- 
 worked, besides giving away every penny he can spare. 
 Why has he gone without a holiday since the out- 
 break of war, do you think? And why has he given 
 up golf? And why doesn't he get home most nights 
 until seven or eight o'clock? You don't imagine he 
 does it for fun?" 
 
 "Well, he never says anything. He seems jolly 
 enough," said Barbara.
 
 82 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 Elsie turned round on her sister with one of the 
 quick changes of mood that her elders found trying. 
 
 "Don't we all ?" she retorted. "Goodness, isn't that 
 what we're all doing from morning to night keeping 
 it up and saying nothing?" 
 
 "But about the job, Father?" said Barbara, letting 
 that go as one of Elsie's flings. "What did Mr. Binny 
 say to you ?" 
 
 "Well, he offered to take me on, as I thought he 
 would," said Mr. Simpson, with a return of his former 
 uneasiness. "Afterwards, when I walked home up 
 the Avenue, I thought I ought to have taken it. But 
 when I was coming out of his office, I couldn't help 
 saying to him : 'Now, Binny, do you really want me, 
 or are you doing this out of friendship? For it seems 
 to me a girl typist on twenty-five bob a week would 
 suit your purpose better than I should/ He said: 
 'No/ but I could see he agreed with me, though he 
 tried to argue otherwise. So I couldn't go in with it 
 after that. I know I ought to have done. It was all 
 my silly pride. But at the moment I somehow 
 couldn't" 
 
 "Of course not, dear," said Mrs. Simpson, but only 
 half-heartedly, for the future loomed steeply in front 
 of her and her nerves were all unstrung. 
 
 Barbara, however, was still full of the vigour of 
 youth, and she added emphatically 
 
 "I should have done just the same. And so would 
 Elsie. Wouldn't you, Elsie?" 
 
 "I should," said Elsie. "I couldn't go where I 
 wasn't wanted not even if it was to heaven. I'd 
 say: 'All right, I'll go to hell!' I used to feel like 
 that when Mrs. Wilson said little girls that made faces
 
 LITTLE WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS 83 
 
 would never go to heaven. I couldn't help making 
 faces: they made themselves." And with the un- 
 wonted excitement her mouth did indeed begin to 
 twitch a little as it had done in the days of her early 
 childhood. 
 
 At once Mrs. Simpson rose from her chair and 
 threw off her apathetic sadness. 
 
 "Of course, you acted for the best, Sam," she 
 remarked quite briskly. "And as Barbara says, you 
 are releasing a man for service. Besides, thirty shil- 
 lings a week will be a very great help." 
 
 "Better than nothing, I suppose," said Mr. Simpson 
 once again, but without conviction. 
 
 "Many a working-man has to live on it," said 
 Barbara. "It will just make all the difference to us." 
 
 "Well . . . when you come to think . . ." said 
 Mr. Simpson. And he allowed himself gradually to 
 be persuaded in the direction where his ever sanguine 
 thoughts were so anxious to go, until when they finally 
 sat down to a dinner of stewed beef and beans a 
 great many beans and a very little beef he was in a 
 position to revive a prehistoric joke told him by his 
 grandfather, about a soupe de bouillon which consisted 
 of one bucket of water and one onion. 
 
 "It's only the sugar that really bothers me," said 
 housekeeper Barbara, taking the matter seriously. 
 
 "Sugar! I'm sick of sugar-talk," said Elsie. "You 
 should see old Barbie nid-nodding and talking with all 
 the old girls in the street about it when she goes out 
 shopping. I believe when the war is over the word 
 'Sugar' will be found written on the hearts of the 
 women of England like Calais on Queen Mary's."
 
 84 THE SILENT LEGION" 
 
 "Barbara does splendidly/' said Mr. Simpson. 
 "Never fed better in my life.'* 
 
 But after luncheon, when \ie awakened from his 
 mid-day nap, his digestive organs protested that they, 
 at any rate, were not going to accept substitutes with- 
 out a struggle. He bore this manfully, and it was only 
 when a very superior lady, in a Sunday newspaper, 
 deplored all the talk about food from a high altitude 
 of not caring, that he did, in common with a good 
 many other middle-class people on the following Sun- 
 day afternoon, feel as a martyr might if somebody 
 tried to snatch his halo. 
 
 Miss Felling was in the same case, having since 
 childhood loathed porridge for breakfast, yet now she 
 gulped it down with a heaving sensation in her stom- 
 ach and an endeavour to sing "Rule, Britannia!" at 
 the same time in her soul : not a very easy feat, but one 
 she performed successfully almost every day. 
 
 As Mr. Simpson looked at Miss Felling's house on 
 this particular Saturday afternoon, he thought of his 
 conversation with Binny, and was interested to see 
 little Kitchener being brought up the Avenue in the 
 arms of the porter's wife. Cries shortly floated 
 through an open window, and Miss Felling could be 
 seen dancing the baby up and down; then the porter's 
 wife hurried out as if it were a busy day at home and 
 she full of urgent affairs. After that there came an 
 interval, punctuated by sudden cries which were mys- 
 teriously stilled, and at last a soldier in blue hospital 
 uniform came down the street. Mr. Simpson called 
 out through the doorway behind him 
 
 "Barbara ! Here's your soldier turned up again !"
 
 LITTLE WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS 85 
 
 "Has he?" Barbara came running. "I knew he 
 would," she said, standing by her father at the window. 
 
 Miss Felling's front door opened and shut: then 
 Brooke's lined face and very bright, dark eyes and 
 white teeth appeared beside little Kitchener's in the 
 window. 
 
 "They've a look of each other, even at this distance," 
 said Mr. Simpson, adjusting his spectacles. 
 
 "The eyes, perhaps," said Barbara. 
 
 "Well can't be the teeth," said Mr. Simpson, 
 chuckling as he turned away from the window. 
 
 The group opposite also disappeared into the interior 
 of the room. Mr. Simpson went into the garden. 
 Elsie came slowly through the door, looking pale and 
 pinched. 
 
 "Head bad?" said Barbara. 
 
 "Um," said Elsie, then she added sharply, "What 
 on earth are you waiting there for ? Want to see Miss 
 Felling's soldier come out?" 
 
 "No. I'm waiting for Dorothy Bellerby," said 
 Barbara. "I promised to go for a walk with her." 
 
 "But you don't like her," protested Elsie. 
 
 "I know I don't very much; but Mrs. Bellerby has 
 been so kind in bringing flowers and fruit for Mother," 
 said Barbara. 
 
 "Oh yes," said Elsie, mimicking Mrs. Bellerby's 
 over-refined way of speaking : " 'My dear daughter 
 sent these from her mother-in-law's place in the Mid- 
 lands. Really a mansion, with a park and acres of 
 greenhouses. I assure you, Mrs. Simpson, we had 
 no idea of his prospects until after they became en- 
 gaged. But an innocent girl's heart is her best guide. 
 Don't you agree with me?' Oh, it makes me sick!"
 
 86 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 Barbara laughed. 
 
 "Anyway, Mother enjoyed the grapes; and it is 
 kind of them to think of her." 
 
 "Barbara," said Elsie, fixing her sister with solemn 
 eyes^"do you know what will happen to you one of 
 these fine mornings? You'll wake up to find yourself 
 married to a man you don't care tuppence about be- 
 cause you've slid into it through being grateful to him 
 for being kind: just as you've slid into a friendship 
 with Dorothy, whom you don't care for a bit. Now 
 I wouldn't be friends with anybody I didn't really like, 
 not if they bu'sted themselves up with being kind. 
 It's me liking them I don't care what they do." 
 
 "Oh, you're a clever one, you are," said Barbara 
 easily. "Well, Mother, rested?" 
 
 "Yes, dear. By the way, Father met Frank Gar- 
 ret in the train this morning, and he asked after us 
 all." 
 
 "Very kind," murmured Barbara, flushing. 
 
 "Kind ! There you are again," said Elsie. "Mother, 
 if I were you, I wouldn't have him hanging round 
 Barbara any more. She doesn't want him, but he'll 
 keep her from wanting anybody else." 
 
 "What do you know about it?" So Mrs. Simpson 
 dismissed her, smiling. "Going for a walk, Barbara ?" 
 
 But Elsie interposed in a burst of shrill impatience : 
 "Yes, you may smile, and you may smile, but you'll 
 smile on the other side of your face when Barbara gets 
 to be a discontented old maid with a red nose like 
 Miss Felling, and you've done it. You and Father 
 ought to have nipped Frank Garret in the bud. You 
 let him dangle too long." 
 
 There was a sufficient element of truth in this tirade
 
 LITTLE WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS 87 
 
 to chime rather unpleasantly with the reproaches of 
 Mrs. Simpson's own conscience. She ought to have 
 interfered; but that exquisite timidity which hedged 
 her round had made her hesitate to brush the bloom 
 off anything so lovely and unconscious as her young 
 daughter's first love. This excuse, however, naturally 
 did not occur to her now, and she felt only that she 
 had failed in her duty as a mother the sort of Mother 
 constantly mentioned by Mrs. Wilson with a capital 
 "M." So she sighed and sat down, saying nothing: 
 a most sure way of bringing her youngest daughter 
 to repentance. 
 
 "There!" exclaimed Elsie impulsively. "Now I've 
 been horrid again. After all the vows I made to 
 myself last night. It almost seems as if the more 
 vows I make the worse I am. But indeed and indeed, 
 I only went on like this because I want dear old Bar- 
 bara to have what she wants not what wants her 
 and she's a wobbler." 
 
 With that she flung out of the door, leaving Mrs. 
 Simpson to remark hesitatingly 
 
 "You are sure you don't regret having refused 
 Frank Garret, dear?" 
 
 "Oh!" cried Barbara, half -laughing, half-exasper- 
 ated. "You'll make me wish I were back in Bourne- 
 mouth again, Mother. At least, nobody was there to 
 keep a constant eye on the barometer of my affections. 
 Fair! Set fair! Changeable! And you and Father and 
 Elsie standing round and tapping. You make me feel 
 crowded !" 
 
 At that moment, however, Dorothy came up the lit- 
 tle path, and Barbara ran out, all unaware how vividly 
 to every last detail that scene would come back to her
 
 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 in later life, and how dear would seem the surround- 
 ing love and care which she now resented. 
 
 Mrs. Simpson took up her knitting resolutely and 
 steadied her lips from trembling: her heart fought 
 har^ during the next half-hour against that realisation 
 of separateness which it takes a mother such a long 
 jtime to learn and then she does not learn it. She 
 looks forward to a future when her daughter will feel 
 as she does then, and understand. 
 
 Perhaps the smell of orange-blossom from the war 
 wedding still lingered about the Avenue, or perhaps 
 it was that a rather mangy syringa in bloom behind 
 Mr. Binny's house gave out wafts of fragrance which 
 led the thoughts unconsciously in the direction of 
 romance. Anyway on that Saturday afternoon little 
 Mrs. Du Caine at the end of the street thinking of 
 past happy Saturdays wrote in her letter to her hus- 
 band : "Do you remember that old inn on our honey- 
 moon with the syringa under the window? I smelt 
 some somewhere about to-day. We'll have another 
 honeymoon there when the war is over, won't we, 
 dear ?" While Mr. Binny, nearest to the bush and en- 
 gaged in digging new potatoes, was inspired to put 
 the best in a basket as an offering for Miss Felling. 
 
 It was no doubt the soft, sunny haze and the scent 
 of the syringa which inspired him as he carefully 
 chose and cleaned the potatoes. With a certain sense 
 of adventure, he washed his hands energetically for a 
 long time washing being a sort of passion with him 
 and thus fortified he took his basket and knocked at 
 Miss Felling's door. She opened it herself, and her 
 nose \vas redder than usual, having recently suffered
 
 LITTLE WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS 89 
 
 from too much of little Kitchener's attention; but 
 Mr. Binny had come up the path on a strong tide of 
 feeling, and was not going to let himself be baulked 
 by a small check now. 
 
 "Are you are you at home?" he said, idiotically 
 and rather breathlessly. 
 
 But Miss Felling, like the rest of the human race, 
 was unaware of the important happenings concerning 
 herself which were going on a few feet away from her 
 in another person's mind. She simply saw that Mr. 
 Binny was a little agitated about something, and 
 the dustman at once occurred to her. The man had 
 been very tiresome last week, and had declined to take 
 meat tins and old bottles. So she introduced this 
 subject at once, after explaining that she awaited the 
 return of Gladys, who was fetching the porter's wife 
 and the perambulator. 
 
 "There! There!" she said, soothing the restive 
 child against her grey blouse in an awkward fashion, 
 but thereby somehow raising Mr. Binny's feelings to 
 a still more adventurous height. He touched the tiny 
 fat hand on her shoulder. 
 
 "Seems a bright little chap," he murmured, having 
 abruptly closed the subject of the dustman. "I hear 
 his er uncle has taken over the responsibility of 
 bringing him up. Very creditable ! Very creditable !" 
 
 "Yes; Mr. Brooke has just been to see the child, 
 and we have got everything satisfactorily settled. I 
 must confess I think he has behaved splendidly," said 
 Miss Felling. 
 
 "Nice little thing," said Mr. Binny, abstractedly 
 adjusting his eye-glasses and bestowing on the hand 
 on Miss Felling's shoulder such a chilly and ill-prac-
 
 90 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 tised kiss that little Kitchener, who was a connoisseur, 
 naturally resented it by kicking violently and bursting 
 into a howl. 
 
 "Hush ! Hush !" soothed Miss Felling. 
 
 "Yah-ooh !" wept little Kitchener. 
 
 "Come! Come!" urged Mr. Binny gingerly, touch- 
 ing a waving foot. 
 
 It was a touching domestic scene. But little 
 Kitchener, with the reckless selfishness of youth, spoilt 
 it all by suddenly grabbing Miss Felling's nose and 
 glaring round at Mr. Binny. This was his nose. Let 
 Mr. Binny go to a place of sour bottles and disregarded 
 pins! 
 
 Mr. Binny fell back a few paces. 
 
 "Queer little fellow!" he said, smiling; but it was, 
 in a sense, a smile of agony. For he felt once more 
 that he simply couldn't do it; and yet he had a great 
 need of Miss Felling in his life. 
 
 Very soon he went away, feeling lonely and old and 
 rather ashamed of himself; but he decided not to try 
 any more. 
 
 After a while the porter's wife wheeled little 
 Kitchener down the street, and it did seem quite in- 
 credible that such an atom of humanity should already 
 have influenced the destiny of two sensible, middle- 
 aged people in Chestnut Avenue. 
 
 Mr. Binny turned from the window, lit his pipe and 
 sat down in the easy chair. After all, a pipe was a 
 great comfort.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 PICTURES 
 
 ON Monday, about a quarter to three in the after- 
 noon, Barbara stood by the looking-glass putting 
 on her hat to go out shopping. Elsie lay on the bed. 
 Shadows from the dancing leaves of the plane-tree 
 moved about on the flowery chintz wall-paper. A dull 
 quiet lay upon the Avenue, with the sounds of Flod- 
 mouth breaking beyond like the tide in a forgotten 
 cave. 
 
 "Oh dear!" said Elsie. "I wish I had something 
 really jolly to do, don't you? It's simply rotten going 
 on like this." 
 
 "Well " Suddenly Barbara herself was con- 
 scious of a keen reaction against the daily round of 
 small economies and hard work with no glory attached. 
 But she answered mechanically: "It's a shame to 
 grumble when you think " 
 
 "Oh, I know! Same old tale remember the poor 
 lads in the trenches," interrupted Elsie petulantly. 
 "Well, I do. That's just what I do do. I'm I'm 
 worn out with remembering. It's like a sort of tooth- 
 ache that goes off a bit and lets you feel almost perky 
 and then grind it goes again. Oh dear!" 
 
 Barbara took up her gloves. 
 
 "Poor old Elsie ! It's very hard for those who can't 
 
 91
 
 92 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 work in this war-time. I don't know how I should 
 live." . . . She kissed the little narrow face. "You're 
 so much better for the rest from school, though; and 
 just think of the years you have before you to do all 
 sorts of wonderful things in." 
 
 "I know I'm a beast," said Elsie; "but I do feel 
 as if I wanted a bit of real fun with nothing dragging 
 at me from behind. You understand what I mean?" 
 
 Barbara understood very well on that greyish golden 
 afternoon; still she had to put up that barrier which 
 those who live together erect in unconscious defence 
 of their souls' privacy; so she only replied 
 
 "I'll change your book at the Library; they may 
 have got the one you want in by now." 
 
 And ten minutes later she was walking down the 
 wide road leading into the city. Trams clashed and 
 jangled : clear-eyed sailors with the tan on their faces 
 from that wonderful, silent watch on the North Sea 
 stepped nimbly along in gold-laced uniforms; a squad 
 of soldiers tramped by the edge of the curb. . . . 
 " 'Nother little drink, 'nother little drink, 'nother little 
 drink wone do usennyarm" . . . singing squalid songs 
 to the deathless tune of glory and sacrifice. The same 
 queer British instinct to hide the best was causing 
 two sailors behind Barbara to tell their girls tales 
 of practical jokes, leaving out all mention of the 
 storms and hardships and nerve-racking, ceaseless 
 vigilance. 
 
 At the corner was a great Cinema Palace, like a 
 scullery-maid's dream of the heavenly mansions; and 
 near it, hovering before a picture in the doorway, stood 
 the guardian of little Kitchener. He loitered slowly, 
 his ill-fitting blue clothes hanging loosely on his thin
 
 PICTURES 93 
 
 limbs; and in spite of his virility there was something 
 rather forlorn and wistful in his 'attitude, Barbara 
 hesitated a moment, and then went up behind him. 
 
 "Well? Wondering whether you should go in or 
 not?" she said pleasantly. 
 
 He swung round and she was struck afresh by the 
 extraordinary keenness and brightness of his eyes and 
 the whiteness of his teeth in his dark, scarred, weather- 
 beaten face. It seemed ridiculous, but she almost felt 
 as if some electric current flashed between them in 
 that moment when he swung round to welcome her. 
 It was not she vaguely felt the ordinary pleasure 
 of a lonely man in meeting a pretty, friendly girl; it 
 was the relief of a soul that has wandered into those 
 lost places outside human fellowship whose mists breed 
 crime and suicide. 
 
 Perhaps at that moment he had got lost there, for 
 when men are weakened by the long strain of battles 
 it is a place easily found and the road may be the 
 veriest bypath ... a sudden gust of cold wind with 
 paper blowing in it ... desolation . . . pain . . . 
 And the way out quickly before the mind's eye. 
 
 But immediately Brooke said, smiling 
 
 "Yes. I was wondering if I should turn in. But 
 it's not much fun going alone." 
 
 "No." She hesitated. That craving for fun which 
 she had felt before coming out worked in her mind, 
 though she herself was only conscious of a desire to 
 cheer a wounded soldier. "Well, supposing we went 
 in together for an hour? It's ages since I was at the 
 pictures." 
 
 "Will you?" She noticed how his face creased 
 round those very bright eyes as he stood erect, smiling
 
 94 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 at her. "I say, that is jolly of you." Then his face 
 shadowed and he added quickly: "Look here! You 
 you needn't come if it's inconvenient, just because 
 you're sorry for me. I'm all right." 
 
 she laughed, and the slight awkwardness and ten- 
 sion about the interview vanished altogether. Brooke 
 noticed the dimple in her cheek for the first time, and 
 thought to himself that every girl ought to have a 
 dimple like that. 
 
 Then she said gaily, for her spirits were rising: 
 "Why on earth should I be sorry for you? You're 
 getting well, all right, and you have light duty at 
 Search ffe to look forward to, and a girl to go to the 
 pictures with : what wounded soldier wants more than 
 that?" 
 
 "Well? I guess this one doesn't, anyway," said 
 Brooke. 
 
 He led the way in, and the picture palace which had 
 before seemed dull and sordid to him now appeared 
 delightful and rather exciting ; it was such a change as 
 comes to an ugly farm-house on a ridge when seen 
 against the sunrise . . . Only Brooke imagined that 
 he had done with such experiences. He liked girls 
 but he had loved once, and that was enough. The 
 torture of that experience left him disinclined for 
 any further stirring of the depths of passion. He 
 knew the force of his own feelings and dreaded it 
 instinctively. 
 
 But he had been so long away from civilisation, 
 first in Canada and then in France, that the whole 
 thing now seemed to him rather magical and unreal. 
 The girl attendant with her flashlight, walking back- 
 wards with little curtesying movements into the gloom,
 
 PICTURES 95 
 
 was like the attendant in some enchanted castle. A 
 man ran swiftly across the screen ... a tiger . . . 
 the empty jungle . . . elephants with howdahs rock- 
 ing. . . . 
 
 Of course it was an ordinary film of a tiger hunt, 
 but something of the toil and wonder of the forces of 
 Nature which had been chained to produce it thrilled 
 Barbara and her companion as they sat down. 
 
 "Colossal game of tig, that?" he said, settling him- 
 self into the red velvet seat. "The forfeit either the 
 man or the tiger." 
 
 "Yes. So you play tig out in Canada?" said Bar- 
 bara letting the words ripple forth as they came into 
 her head: it did not seem to matter what she said 
 in that soft darkness because she felt though she was 
 not aware of feeling that the words themselves did 
 not matter. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know! Not many children about 
 where I was." He leaned just a little nearer. "I re- 
 member how we used to play tig at home when we 
 were kids. At school-treats especially. My mother 
 used to get tired and go home and it turned hazy over 
 the fields. . . . The trees felt damp when you touched 
 them." . . . 
 
 He talked on in a constant stream, seized with that 
 strange garrulousness which sometimes attacks re- 
 served and lonely people in the presence of strangers 
 who are sympathetic to them. He told Barbara all 
 sorts of trifles about his early life and the old home 
 which he would have thought an hour before to have 
 been absolutely forgotten. A thousand others welled 
 up in his memory too fast to be given out; how his 
 mother looked when she sat at the evening meal in
 
 96 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 the low Vicarage room with its three windows facing 
 the garden; the shadow of his father's head on the 
 wall behind the pulpit on summer nights when the 
 candles were lighted and there was sunset still through 
 the west-window; the sound of the old parish clerk's 
 A-a-men! at the end of the service. 
 
 And now here was Barbara's clear voice close to his 
 ear. "How you must have loved your home. Were 
 you very lonely out in Canada after ... I mean when 
 you lived alone?" 
 
 "Oh, I rubbed along all right." He roused him- 
 self, wondering. " 'Fraid I must have bored you aw- 
 fully, Miss Simpson." 
 
 "No no! And I like hearing about Canada." 
 
 "Well, I suppose everybody gets a bit lonely at 
 times. You say to yourself on winter nights when the 
 chores are all done: 'I wonder what they're doing at 
 home to-night?' And you picture them sitting round. 
 But very likely they're doing something quite differ- 
 ent." And he laughed, beckoning the chocolate girl. 
 
 But Barbara's quick mind responded again to what 
 was behind the words. She heard in this garish hall 
 filled now with a soft darkness the eternal chanting 
 of that wistful chorus which sounds from all the lonely 
 places in the world: "I wonder what they're doing at 
 home to-night!" In her sudden rush of warm desire 
 to comfort every one of them she moved a little closer 
 to Brooke, saying eagerly 
 
 "But it's so glorious to be a pioneer. It's the grand- 
 est fight there is a man fighting Nature for a liv- 
 ing : and tKati won't stop whatever they manage to do 
 about the other kind of war. It's bound to go on while 
 the world lasts. You can put your whole life and soul
 
 PICTURES 97 
 
 into learning how to continue that fight, and feel it 
 will always be worth while." 
 
 "Think so ?" he said casually. But his arm touched 
 hers in the dark, while a deep sense of companionship 
 after long loneliness pervaded his being nothing more 
 as yet: and the pictures slipped quickly along before 
 their eyes, making the pause natural. "I say you'd 
 be the right sort for a colonist's wife." 
 
 Again silence between them, and the warm darkness : 
 a man mouthing and gesticulating on the screen . . . 
 an unnameable, delicate thrill going in from one to the 
 other which was not passion, but bore the same relation 
 to it that the first stirring of the dawn wind in the 
 dark bears to the dawn. 
 
 "Wonderful how they get these films !" He bent his 
 head sideways, speaking in her ear, but his coat-sleeve 
 scarcely touched her blouse he would not have 
 pressed coarsely upon her for the world. 
 
 "Wonderful!" 
 
 Instinct was also alive in her as she felt the light 
 touch of the cloth through her thin sleeve, though her 
 mind feigned cool aloofness and would know nothing 
 of it. But she suddenly grew rather afraid of that 
 warm darkness which enveloped them, and jerked out 
 mechanically: "Do you intend to go back to Canada 
 after the war?" 
 
 "Oh ! After the war !" he echoed. 
 
 And a further echo of that phrase seemed to go on 
 and on interminably, dying at last into a silence which 
 was only a sign that it was still travelling. 
 
 "Yes." Barbara paused; she too listened to that 
 empty echoing. "You feel like that. It's no use plan-
 
 98 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 ning. You only get upset if you try. The only thing 
 is just to live from day to day." 
 
 They ceased talking again, their minds hanging on 
 to that. ... A fat man climbed up a ladder; two 
 lovers came from behind a yew-hedge and kissed in the 
 sunshine; three girls ran out laughing, with roses in 
 their hands. . . . 
 
 "Looks jolly, eh? Nice even to see a bit of fun." 
 
 Barbara nodded, and a fierce reaction of youth 
 against the tremendous pressure of suspense and pain 
 and sorrow took hold of her. 
 
 "I didn't mind having no fun when I was working 
 in the hospital," she said abruptly, eagerly. "But I'm 
 simply fed up with being general servant at home. 
 All the other girls are doing something that really mat- 
 ters and here am I ... I feel as if I couldn't bear 
 it any longer." 
 
 "It's a grand thing, making a home though," he 
 said. 
 
 "Grand! That's all you know." She sighed. 
 "However, Mother is ill, Elsie delicate, and Father's 
 business is closed down, so I have no choice, of 
 course." 
 
 He cleared his throat, staring at the pictures; then 
 said : "Plenty would have done differently." 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," said Barbara, but the very 
 absence of glibness in his words carried conviction, and 
 she felt warmed and heartened in her turn as he had 
 been earlier in the conversation. They sat together in 
 an atmosphere of mutual appreciation that made lik- 
 ing grow very rapidly indeed. 
 
 "I must go after this," she said, all at once aware 
 of something getting ahead of her that she must arrest
 
 PICTURES 99 
 
 for a while until she had considered it; "my people 
 will wonder where I am." 
 
 "Oh come! You'll have a cup of tea with me? 
 Shame to spoil such a kind deed by half-doing it," he 
 urged. 
 
 She was silent a moment or two. . . . The fat man 
 on the screen came down the ladder and surprised the 
 lovers. Comic business. Exit fat man. Lovers hold- 
 ing each other close in the sunshine. . . . 
 
 "All right," she said. "I'll come if you like. Only 
 you must not expect much of a tea in these days. Two- 
 ounce limit, you know." 
 
 They both laughed, though there was nothing to 
 laugh at. 
 
 "I say," he whispered. "It's real good of you. 
 You can't imagine what you are doing for me. I've 
 been lonely enough out on the prairie; but nothing 
 to what I was when I came home to England wounded. 
 Most of the men in the hospital where I was at first 
 had somebody to write to them or come and see them ; 
 but there I lay with nobody to care a damn whether I 
 got better or I didn't." He paused. "I was weak and 
 run down, or I shouldn't have felt like that, of course. 
 My sisters in Glasgow did write later; only they are 
 married and naturally full of their own concerns." 
 
 The light went up ; some sort of spell which had lain 
 upon the place and upon them was lifted: they were 
 already wondering at themselves. 
 
 "If I had known, I would have written to you in 
 hospital," said Barbara soberly. "I would to any 
 soldier who had nobody." 
 
 "That is kind of you." 
 
 So they talked during tea, rather stiffly, and with a
 
 IPO THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 sense of frustration and disappointment . . . What 
 were they unconsciously expecting that they did not 
 get? 
 
 Brooke blamed the band. Barbara the tea-cakes. 
 At last the pauses in the conversation so different 
 from thosfe pauses in the Cinema Hall became so em- 
 barrassing that Barbara rose from the table. 
 
 "Well, I must be off now. Thank you so much." 
 
 "No, indeed. It is I who have to thank you." 
 
 Brooke accompanied her, and as they walked the 
 odd sense of irritation began to wear off : they found 
 themselves laughing and talking naturally as they 
 made their way through the crowded streets. At the 
 door of 28 Chestnut Avenue, however, Barbara's self- 
 consciousness again returned, and she said nervously, 
 holding out her hand 
 
 "Well, good-bye. I am sorry I cannot ask you in 
 to-day, but Mother is not very well. Do come and see 
 us some time before you leave." 
 
 "Thank you. You bet I shall." 
 
 Their hands loosed and they moved away from each 
 other, both feeling unwilling to part like this. But all 
 the same there seemed nothing more to say. Then 
 Brooke saw Miss Felling at the opposite window. 
 
 "I know what I was going to ask you," he said 
 hastily: "can you suggest a toy for little Kitchener? 
 He's not old enough for a Teddy Bear ?" 
 
 Barbara came back a few steps. 
 
 "No. Oh, anything fluffy and bright coloured that 
 makes a noise." 
 
 "Sounds as if you were describing a girl for a sub on 
 leave. But I s'pose males go on having the same tastes 
 in toys. . . ." Then he did realise that he was look-
 
 PICTURES 101 
 
 ing at Barbara's dimple and ceasing to talk sense. 
 "Miss Simpson, it would be fine if you would go with 
 me to buy the toy," he said directly, pulling himself 
 together. 
 
 "I shall be shopping about eleven," she said. "I 
 may see you in the town." 
 
 "I'm not sure if I can get out, of course." 
 
 "No? Well, in case you are. . . ." 
 
 "Good-bye." 
 
 They really parted this time, and Barbara went up 
 the little path into the house. 
 
 The Simpsons sat round the table at their evening 
 meal, dropping little phrases into the silence. An 
 engine shrieked at the end of the Avenue. A local 
 evening paper lay across a chair with the great head- 
 line "Air-raid on London!" Before the meal was 
 quite finished Mr. Simpson pushed himself away from 
 the table with his great stomach, rose, and went out 
 of the room. "Going to have a pipe in the garden," 
 he said. 
 
 Mrs. Simpson was left with her two daughters at the 
 table. 
 
 "Has Father been put out at the office?" said 
 Barbara. 
 
 "No," said Mrs. Simpson. "At least, it is rather 
 trying to be found fault with and ordered about by a 
 man who was an office boy when he was an articled 
 clerk, of course. And I think he rather hates having 
 to click a sort of thing when he goes in and out, to 
 show if he is punctual. But he says it is necessary and 
 all right. He doesn't worry about little things like 
 that, really."
 
 102 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "Then what is it?" asked Barbara. 
 
 "I believe it upsets him to think of all those children 
 being killed and injured in the London raids," said 
 Mrs. Simpson. "You know what he is about children." 
 
 "It's all very well you Balking about God sending 
 trouble and working for the best," said Elsie, suddenly 
 looking up with her white face from her almost un- 
 tasted meal. Then she flung across a phrase like a 
 gage : "I don't believe God cares tuppence !" 
 
 "Hush, dear," said Mrs. Simpson, "I know how you 
 feel, and nobody can understand it all. We can only 
 trust and leave it." 
 
 Barbara glanced at her mother's white face and 
 trembling hands, and rose, taking a dish from the 
 table. 
 
 "This beef will do for rissoles to-morrow, won't it?" 
 she said, frowning at Elsie. 
 
 Mrs. Simpson put a hand to her aching head. 
 
 "Yes. Put plenty of lentils with it and then there 
 will be enough. I suppose you got the lentils this 
 afternoon ?" 
 
 "I forgot." Barbara paused, fighting down her 
 odd disinclination to speak of Brooke and added 
 quickly: "I met that soldier who came about Lillie's 
 baby. He was standing outside the Picture Palace 
 looking so awfully lonely that I went up to him. I 
 felt sorry." . . . 
 
 A moment's pause, then Mrs. Simpson said 
 
 "Well, it does seem hard that these Colonial soldiers 
 should come over to fight for England and not find a 
 friend." 
 
 "That's how I felt," said Barbara eagerly. "So 
 when he asked me to go with him to the pictures, of
 
 PICTURES 103 
 
 course I went. I simply couldn't refuse, could I?" 
 
 "N-no," said Mrs. Simpson without enthusiasm, 
 for after all it was one thing to wish to befriend all 
 Colonial soldiers and quite another to hear that a 
 cherished young daughter had been alone to a Cinema 
 Hall with tlr brother of a bigamist who had never 
 been in the Colonies at all. "Only I should let it end 
 there," she added. 
 
 "But I didn't!" cried Barbara, disproportionately 
 angry and moved. "I went to tea, too. And I'm very 
 glad I did." She paused and added in a burst: "I 
 do think you are unkind. What should we have 
 thought if dear Jim had been out in Canada and nice 
 girls there had been 'careful' lest he should contami- 
 nate them?" 
 
 Mrs. Simpson glanced searchingly at her daughter a 
 second and then dropped her eyes. She knew quite 
 well that Barbara would never have brought Jim 
 forward as an argument unless she were in some way 
 deeply moved. 
 
 "You must remember how badly Brooke's brother 
 behaved to poor Lillie, Barbara," she said. 
 
 "Yes, I know. But if all the good brothers in 
 England were tarred black to match the bad ones, we 
 should see something very queer indeed. It's not like 
 you to be unfair, Mother." 
 
 Mrs. Simpson waited a moment, looking at the table- 
 cloth; then she smiled at her girl that beautiful, timid 
 smile which came straight from the heart. 
 
 "Well, Barbara, you must do as you think right. I 
 trust you. I have always trusted you." 
 
 Instantly, Barbara blurted out : 
 
 "I've promised to meet him in the morning."
 
 1104 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "I say, that is going it," said Elsie languidly, rous- 
 ing herself from her brooding silence. 
 
 "It's only to buy a toy for little Kitchener," said 
 Barbara. "He didn't quite know what to get." She 
 paused and added with an effort: "Do you want me 
 not to?" 
 
 "No, dear. As you have promised you must go. 
 
 Only " Mrs. Simpson paused, looking at her 
 
 daughter. 
 
 "It will be all right, Mother," said Barbara impa- 
 tiently. "You take the matter too seriously. You 
 live in such a narrow groove that you don't understand 
 how men and girls go about together now-a-days with 
 nobody thinking anything at all about it." 
 
 And as Mr. Simpson came into the room again at 
 that moment, bringing a flower for his wife and a new 
 joke about potatoes, the subject of Brooke was allowed 
 to drop.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 SIGNALS 
 
 morning very early, not long after dawn, 
 Barbara awakened to hear the moving of 
 stealthy footsteps in the house. She immediately 
 thought of burglars, because some minor burglaries 
 had taken place in that part of the city, and her first 
 instinct was to prevent her mother from being startled. 
 So she threw on a dressing-gown and ran down with- 
 out waiting to think what she would do with the burg- 
 lar if she got him. 
 
 But the actual creak of a board and a faint clatter 
 of iron did give a check to her enterprise. She crept 
 very softly indeed to the kitchen door with her heart 
 throbbing against her ribs and peered in. Then she 
 leaned for a second against the doorpost, the colour 
 coming back into her face, and said most irritably 
 
 "What on earth is this?" 
 
 And indeed the black-a-vised gentleman who whirled 
 round to face her with the whites of his eyes rolling 
 nigger-wise in his grimy countenance, and a red and 
 yellowish bath-towel tied round his inflated middle, 
 was sufficiently unlike the ordinary Mr. Simpson of 
 Chestnut Avenue and the Empress Wharf to make his 
 identity almost incredible. He let a blacking-brush 
 
 105
 
 io6 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 fall noisily on the fender and said with the oddest mix- 
 ture of caught guilt and defiance 
 
 "What are you coming down now for? It is not 
 time yet. I I was just amusing myself blacking the 
 grate." And his tone plainly added : "Can't a man 
 ever have a little private amusement without a lot 
 of females nosing round?" 
 
 Barbara laughed, but there was a very deep and 
 tender shining in those blue eyes behind the laughter 
 as she ran across the kitchen and threw her arms round 
 him, grime and all. 
 
 "You silly, silly old Dad!" she cried, kissing him. 
 "Oh, what a horrid taste of soot ! But you don't take 
 me in with your bluster; you caught sight of me doing 
 the grate yesterday morning. I know you!" 
 
 "Well, I hate to see " Mr. Simpson stood blus- 
 
 teringly on the defensive again, blacking-brush in 
 hand. 
 
 "What nonsense!" interrupted Barbara. "YouVe 
 nicked my favourite job. I love doing grates : there's 
 something to show for it." 
 
 "Well, I think I was getting on fairly well." He 
 surveyed his handiwork with a sort of proud humility. 
 "Only it seems to use rather a lot of stuff. I can't 
 help thinking it rather an extravagant method." 
 
 At this Barbara began to laugh again, but softly, 
 lest she should waken the sleepers upstairs. 
 
 "Oh dear! You don't know how funny you look! 
 Why, you've used enough blacklead to do every grate 
 down one side of Chestnut Avenue. You are an old 
 Silly Billy of a father to get up in the middle of the 
 night like this, when you know how your new office 
 job takes it out of you."
 
 SIGNALS 107 
 
 "I wouldn't say that nothing but ordinary clerical 
 work " murmured Mr. Simpson. 
 
 "I know you wouldn't say it," retorted Barbara, 
 "but you have done no routine work of that kind since 
 you were a young man, and it worries you having to be 
 so accurate or get found fault with." 
 
 He stared at her, oddly surprised and serious in his 
 queer garb. 
 
 "How did you know that ?" 
 
 "Oh, clever girl, I am!" she said lightly. "Now 
 go along and wash your hands." 
 
 She drove him before her into the back kitchen and 
 shut the door lest sounds should be heard upstairs. 
 In a few minutes a little tin kettle boiled on the gas 
 ring and the two laughed and whispered over their 
 cups of tea with an odd sense of jollity and adventure. 
 Barbara set wide the scullery door which led to the 
 back garden and the sweet freshness that comes with 
 early summer mornings even to little town gardens 
 blew in upon them. 
 
 "Bless me! I really think this is the best cup of 
 tea I ever tasted!" said Mr. Simpson, beaming upon 
 his daughter with a smeared but comparatively clean 
 face. "I don't know when I have had such a cup 
 before." 
 
 "It tastes like that in hospital when you have been 
 on night duty," said Barbara. "Oh, Father, I should 
 like to have a statue erected in every town in England 
 to the man who first thought of making tea-leaves into 
 tea ... or the first woman. I almost think it must 
 have been a woman. I can't understand why some 
 great poet doesn't write a poem about tea, can you? 
 When you think of all the sad people it has comforted."
 
 io8 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 Thus she ran on, while Mr. Simpson drank with 
 relish, and thought nobody in the world had such girls 
 as his girls. But it was what they did not talk about 
 that touched them most, and gave such an atmosphere 
 of love and laughter to the little meal. 
 
 For instance, Barbara knew well enough that her 
 father must have been awake a long time in the night 
 before his thoughts culminated in a fierce : "She shan't 
 blacklead fire-grates any more if I know it!" and a 
 descent in a bath-towel. 
 
 And Mr. Simpson kept to himself, mainly because he 
 was not conscious of it, that ideal of the middle-class 
 man which is or was to keep his women-folk in 
 idleness. Such a man would chain himself to an office 
 desk for thirty years to feel rewarded in the end if he 
 could keep two servants instead of one, and his wife 
 and daughters need not even dust the drawing-room. 
 Part of this was snobbishness, and the two maids a 
 sign of that caste which these men and their fathers 
 had worked and saved and sacrificed to gain or keep; 
 but the other part was pure chivalry the unique, 
 Anglo-Saxon, middle-class sense of chivalry towards 
 women, which is not greater, perhaps, but different 
 in essence to any other. 
 
 Thus Mr. Simpson had not stood for himself alone 
 as he kept vigil during the previous night, but for a 
 million other such bald-headed, commonplace, uncon- 
 scious idealists. 
 
 When Barbara opened the front door to take in the 
 milk a scent of flowering beans came down the Avenue, 
 as if some country fairies were dancing through the 
 city and you could smell their fragrance without seeing 
 them. So Barbara's spirits danced too, because she
 
 SIGNALS 109 
 
 was young and healthy, and also though this went 
 unacknowledged because she was going to meet 
 Brooke about eleven. A little sense of change and 
 adventure came into her dull life with the thought of 
 him which was very pleasant; for she missed the 
 emotional excitement of her relation with Frank Gar- 
 ret more than she knew, though she did not want 
 him any longer. Still he had filled a certain place 
 in her thoughts for so long that she was unconsciously 
 sensible of a blank; for she was not, as Elsie might 
 probably become, a natural celibate. There was a need 
 in her, fostered by Garret's discreet love-making from 
 early girlhood, which could only be satisfied by her 
 mate. 
 
 So now she smiled at the milk-woman, saying it was 
 a lovely morning, and the little, oldish, rosy-faced 
 country-woman smiled back. 
 
 "Oh yes; morning's all right. But the price of meat 
 and everything! If this goes on we shall have to 
 have a revolution." 
 
 She said it as casually as one might say "We shall 
 have to have a spring-cleaning" ; and went off clatter- 
 ing her cans. 
 
 But Barbara stood still for a minute, looking after 
 her. It was so odd to hear in such a way that terrible 
 suggestion of blood and tears. The woman did not 
 realise what her words held, of course, but it was a 
 startling sign of the way in which the tide passing over 
 Russia had eddied into the remotest little inlets of 
 Europe. Barbara was vaguely startled, as if she had 
 come across a child in a buttercup-field playing with 
 a live bomb. 
 
 The impression soon faded from her mind, however,
 
 no THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 and she went forth to do the shopping with her basket 
 on her arm and that high, unconscious "God's in His 
 heaven, All's right with the world," which is the nat- 
 ural morning mood of such a girl as Barbara, who 
 has to spring up taut in the sunlight like a flower on 
 the grassy side of the road, whatever is going to pass 
 by that day. 
 
 So freshly self -poised did Barbara look to Brooke 
 as he watched her come across the great square, where 
 the tide of giving which has swept across and across 
 Flodmouth ever since the outbreak of war, once more 
 caught the passers-by with little badges and tin boxes. 
 Barbara put in her coin like all the rest, beginning at 
 once to plan what she must go without because she 
 had given it just like all the rest, too. Because that 
 is what giving means now among people such as the 
 Simpsons. 
 
 Then she looked up to see Brooke's thin figure and 
 worn face and his extraordinary bright and vivid 
 glance seeking hers compelling it. She was keenly 
 aware of his alert gait which gave such an impression 
 of unspent energy, despite his stiff left arm. 
 
 "Oh, lovely morning," she said. 
 
 "Yes, isn't it glorious?" 
 
 But the banality of their greeting was all part of 
 something so natural and deeply appropriate that they 
 remained unaware of it : indeed, with all due deference 
 to Milton, it seems likely that when Adam first greeted 
 Eve he said it was a fine day for the apple-blossom. 
 
 So these two turned and walked together, jostled by 
 soldiers and sailors and women hurrying for the cars. 
 Brooke was rather silent, trying to put a strong curb 
 on his excitement, for he was conscious of the folly
 
 SIGNALS 111 
 
 of feeling like this about a girl whom he had only seen 
 twice, and who might vanish out of his life at any 
 moment. It seemed to him like one of those sudden 
 gusts of passion for a girl's face on the stage or at a 
 window which he had always viewed in other men with 
 tolerant contempt, not giving it the name of love. 
 But he could not help rejoicing in her nearness all the 
 time, even while he remained outwardly dull and un- 
 interested. 
 
 j And Barbara's gay morning mood shone back re- 
 sponsive to what he felt, not to what he said. The old 
 bridge and the gay streets became so a-sparkle with 
 the joyousness of these young people that they saw 
 everything glorified the very trams rushing along in 
 happy haste to reach the busy, opalescent river. Clang ! 
 Clang! went the hideous car-bell, seeming to them 
 but an urgent call to passers-by to go about some merry 
 business. The noises of Flodmouth sounded nearer 
 and richer and more home-like to Barbara than they 
 had ever done before, though she was not conscious 
 of hearing them. It was like that moment in an opera 
 when the orchestra is working up to a climax. She 
 was unknown to herself filled with a tremendous 
 sense of expectation. 
 
 "Market-day. Lot of people," said Brooke, but 
 he really felt himself to be shouting aloud: "I say, 
 isn't it a lark to be alive ? Isn't it a lark for us to be 
 alive together, whatever happens next?" 
 
 And Barbara answered in words : "Yes, the country- 
 people come to do their shopping," though she was 
 really laughing out in eager response: "Yes! Yes! 
 It's glorious fun for us two just to be alive together 
 in the world."
 
 di2 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 But while such a conversation is thrillingly inter- 
 esting to take part in, it is very dull to describe; be- 
 cause even those who have held it cannot recall after- 
 wards the delightful little shock of thoughts unexpect- 
 edly meeting and fusing, and the spark which flies up 
 then, lighting all existence for a lovely minute. Such 
 things refuse to come back even in the happiest mem- 
 ories. 
 
 When Barbara and her companion reached the toy- 
 shop of which they were in search, however, this magic 
 circuit was broken and a sense of dull insufficiency fell 
 upon them. They became blankly self-conscious and 
 disappointed, groping, without knowing it, to set up 
 the connection again. This is a moment when half- 
 lovers often feel disappointed with each other and say 
 to themselves: "He or she is not what I thought," 
 and so go away for ever. 
 
 Thus they entered the shop rather like the peacocks 
 who have been walking along, thinking themselves 
 monarchs with shining tails, and now suddenly find 
 their tails have moulted : each wondering how they 
 can have been deceived by such a dull bird. 
 
 "Oh!" said Barbara to the attendant in a stiff, un- 
 natural voice. "Have you any toys for a baby, 
 please ?" 
 
 "Our choice of toys is limited," said the woman 
 severely. She looked as if she had never been a baby 
 and hated toys. "War, of course. How old is your 
 baby, madam?" 
 
 "Oh, quite small." 
 
 "Can't walk yet," added Brooke gruffly. 
 
 The grim spinster cast upon them both a look of
 
 SIGNALS 113 
 
 pitying tolerance and brought forth her most expensive 
 woolly toy which rattled dismally somewhere inside. 
 
 "Noisy: and soils quickly, of course. But babies 
 always love this doll, and I find parents don't seem to 
 mind when it's the first." And once more she squeezed 
 and shook with the same drearily contemptuous air, 
 as if long processions of young parents who were fools 
 filed through the past before her eyes. "I always 
 say " 
 
 "I'll take it," interrupted Brooke; then he remem- 
 bered that Barbara had expressly come out with him 
 to choose the toy : "That is, if the lady likes it." 
 
 Barbara nodded and the woman signified approval 
 of this quick purchase by a wintry smile and an ob- 
 viously over-worked jest. "I generally find ladies do 
 choose this when they come with their husbands, sir. 
 But as I always say, no use taking both a husband 
 and a purse out with you, is it, madam? Either one 
 or the other." She paused and drew forth a tray of 
 ivory rings. "What about one of these? While 
 you are doing? The baby is sure to need one, and 
 they last for half a dozen if required." 
 
 "No, thank you," said Brooke, holding out the 
 money. Then grasping the doll he walked out, leaving 
 Barbara to follow. 
 
 The woman looked after him and followed Barbara 
 to the door. 
 
 "Please forgive me," she said, and to Barbara's 
 intense surprise her eyes filled with tears. "I wouldn't 
 hurt the feelings of any one serving at the Front not 
 for worlds. I lost a nephew of my own there that was 
 like a son to me. And of course your husband can't 
 be certain there's no knowing if he will be there to
 
 114 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 see even this baby teething . . . I'm sure I meant no 
 offence." 
 
 Barbara patted the woman's arm, in her own emo- 
 tional state touched quite beyond the occasion, and 
 with her eyes also swimming in tears. 
 
 "The toy is not for us," she said. "We are not 
 married. We were just buying it for a present." 
 
 "Well, so long as there is no offence." 
 
 And the woman gazed after them wistfully for a 
 moment before she went back into the shop. 
 
 They were talking more naturally now, and soon 
 entered the grimy looking archway into the Market 
 Hall, which seemed very dim and cool with its piles of 
 fruit and bunches of pinks and roses after the busy 
 street. 
 
 "Here's the stall I go to," said Barbara. "See that 
 young officer standing there? He's the woman's son 
 and was in a grocer's shop. I like him for not being 
 ashamed to come here." 
 
 "Why should he be?" said Brooke. "I helped in 
 a store in Canada when I first went out. The man I 
 was with at that time came over to enlist when I did 
 a splendid fellow!" 
 
 "Where is he now?" said Barbara, choosing her 
 lettuce carefully. 
 
 "Oh, he's fallen. I went to see his mother last week. 
 He'd planted a garden for her out there and she was to 
 have gone to him. But he had to come when the war 
 broke out. We all had. I remember how we talked 
 it over one night in Calgary twenty of us and I 
 do believe any one of them would have turned their 
 backs on a million of money if it had been offered
 
 SIGNALS 115 
 
 them to stop out there. They were mad to take sides 
 with England." He paused, pushed his cap back and 
 took a strawberry. "Some strawberries, these!" 
 
 So Barbara knew that he did not want to say any 
 more about the war, but all the time they were walking 
 round the cool, arched hall between the fruit and flow- 
 ers and piles of green vegetables, she saw before her 
 those twenty men, eager-hearted, burning to help the 
 Motherland. Brooke's face was among them, but 
 seemed already, as it appeared now, his eyes glowing 
 with the same inward fire. 
 
 When they came out into the narrow, crowded 
 streets of old Flodmouth where the banks and great 
 businesses still go on, the sunlight through the soft 
 haze made quite a dazzling brightness after the cool 
 twilight of the hall. And here and there among girls 
 and women carrying fruit and flowers back to the out- 
 lying parts of the town, were neat, well-brushed, mid- 
 dle-aged men and boys going about their morning's 
 business. Just as they passed the corner of the street 
 leading to\vards the docks, Frank Garret came running 
 down the steps of an impressive building and raised 
 his hat to Barbara, then went on quickly. 
 
 But she was angry to feel the hot blood surge up 
 into her face, colouring even her neck and forehead, 
 and almost bringing tears of embarrassment into her 
 eyes. It was somehow so particularly hateful to her 
 at that moment, that he should still have power to 
 move her in this way : and though Brooke was looking 
 straight before him she knew he had seen that painful 
 blush the badge of an old slavery which she could not 
 after all be free of, though she had felt an absolute 
 freedom on the day of Blanche's wedding. It was a
 
 ii6 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 shame. He had had all the fresh dreams of her girl- 
 hood and she could never take that back again. There 
 must always be this secret bond between them. 
 
 She stared down at the flowers which Brooke had 
 given her, letting people bump into her without being 
 sufficiently conscious of it to evade them bewildered 
 with the puzzle of life. And Brooke tramped by her, 
 conscious once more of the pain in his arm which he 
 had forgotten until he saw her blush crimson over 
 forehead and neck at another man's greeting. He did 
 not put his feeling down to this cause, but rather to a 
 dull sense of fatigue which made him suddenly not 
 care whether he ever saw Barbara again . . . One of 
 those strange withdrawals which accompany the begin- 
 ning of a great attraction ; as if human nature instinc- 
 tively feared the stress of what was coming. 
 
 At the end of the Avenue Barbara stood still and 
 took from him the basket which he had insisted on 
 carrying with his good hand, and in giving him the 
 toy she said artificially 
 
 "Dear little Kitchener! How delighted he will be 
 with his present !" Then she laughed at nothing. 
 
 "Hope so. The old girl in the shop seemed certain 
 of it." And he, too, laughed aimlessly. 
 
 But sudden with those words there flashed across 
 their foolish unreality the quick recollection that they 
 had been for a moment, in the eyes of a fellow human 
 being, husband and wife. It was thus the shopwom- 
 an's thoughts had joined them, and they could not yet 
 put themselves quite asunder though they both 
 fought against the utter ridiculousness of it. 
 
 "Well, good-bye, Miss Simpson. Thanks so much 
 for helping me to choose."
 
 SIGNALS 117 
 
 "Oh, not at all. Good-bye." 
 
 But again, as on the last occasion, they made ready 
 to part and suddenly could not let each other go; 
 they must create a way by which they could still keep 
 hold of a thread that might lead them back each to 
 the other. 
 
 He fumbled with the toy. 
 
 "I don't believe I quite got the hang of this thing. 
 You couldn't just come round with me to present it, 
 could you?" 
 
 She waited a moment: "No, I have been out too 
 long already." 
 
 "Oh, of course I ought not to trouble you. You've 
 been awfully good." And he saluted and moved on. 
 
 But something about his figure as he turned away 
 a wistful loneliness so at variance with his hardened 
 look and excessive vitality struck that same chord 
 in her that had made her go up and speak to him out- 
 side the Cinema Hall and struck it more deeply. Her 
 whole being was vibrating as she caught him up, but 
 the fire which leapt into his eyes when her hand touched 
 his arm and he swung round towards her, made her 
 pause again. 
 
 "I was wondering " she began, incoherently 
 
 "would you come that is, I wondered if you would 
 care to have tea with us to-morrow afternoon and then 
 we could take the toy round afterwards?" 
 
 "I should I should indeed," he answered. 
 
 But they both felt as if they had just been losing 
 each other in a terrible maze where they might never 
 meet again, and had somehow managed at the last 
 minute to catch each other by the hand. They were
 
 ii8 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 left a little breathless with the curious strain and sud- 
 den relief of it. 
 
 "About four o'clock?" 
 
 "Yes. I have massage to-morrow morning. I ex- 
 pect I can get off at that time." 
 
 "Then you'd better let me keep the toy until to- 
 morrow." 
 
 "Thank you. Oh, that'll be splendid. Nowhere 
 to put anything in hospital." 
 
 They parted again, some subtle instinct warning him 
 against offering to walk all the way home with her. 
 He had already got so much . . . every fibre in him 
 was now responsive to those delicate advances and 
 withdrawals in her. 
 
 Barbara had no sooner reached the house than she 
 began to wonder what on earth had induced her to 
 invite a stranger to tea on a Saturday when Mr. Simp- 
 son was at home and she herself was always particu- 
 larly busy. Surely there was work enough, in all con- 
 science, on that day in a servantless household, with- 
 out going out of the way to entertain soldiers. So 
 Barbara reasoned within herself, feeling quite certain 
 that she did not want to see Brooke so soon again, and 
 yet restless until he came. Her household tasks were 
 performed with a furious energy that left no place for 
 thought; and yet all the time she was conscious of a 
 thousand .pricking regrets and embarrassments which 
 she intended to put right in his eyes by her dignified 
 and charming demeanour when they next met. 
 
 Why had she said this? Why had she not said 
 that? Why had she looked so? 
 
 And then a sudden tide of warmth came flowing all
 
 SIGNALS 119 
 
 over her as she remembered his eyes looking into hers 
 over the market bunch of pinks and roses. 
 
 By supper time, however, she was again certain 
 that she regretted having asked him, and she said as 
 much to Elsie while they were laying the table. But 
 when Elsie replied: "Don't you like him then?" she 
 was conscious of an untruthfulness in her own imme- 
 diate : "Oh, I like him, but I don't think I should care 
 to see much of him, that's all." 
 
 "Well," said Elsie, banging down the mustard pot, 
 "I only hope you won't see much of him if it always 
 makes you as jumpy and irritable as you have been 
 since luncheon. You keep snapping my head off first 
 about one thing and then another." She paused, look- 
 ing critically at her sister. "And yet it can't be be- 
 cause you have fallen in love. You always used to 
 come home from walks with Frank Garret in a mild 
 and affectionate frame of mind. I remember you gave 
 me your Tennyson one time, and a pair of scissors an- 
 other." 
 
 "Oh !" Barbara curbed herself and used her ancient 
 weapon. "You are too young to talk about such 
 things. It will be a good thing when you start going 
 to school again." 
 
 Elsie laughed. 
 
 "Good old Barbie! You shouldn't be so nice that 
 the young men get gone on you. It's your doing, not 
 mine." 
 
 Then Mr. Simpson's light tread in the hall so al- 
 ways light that it told nothing put an end to the dis- 
 cussion. He looked fagged and worn, however, and 
 they all three tried to ply him with the choicest morsels, 
 pretending to have no appetite that evening for any-
 
 120 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 thing but bread and margarine, and surreptitiously 
 trying to make him eat what remained on the dish. 
 So after a while he grew more alert and cheerful, tell- 
 ing them various scraps of news from the town accord" 
 ing to his usual habit. 
 
 "Saw Binny to-day. He seems a bit shy of me. I 
 think he feels uncomfortable about not giving me a 
 job though he did offer." 
 
 "I hope he does," said Elsie. "But you're all right 
 where you are." 
 
 "Oh, of course," said Mr. Simpson rather heavily. 
 He had been reprimanded during the afternoon by the 
 office boy of his own day at Wagstaffe's for some 
 clerical error and still felt sore, and ashamed to be 
 sore : a complicated and unpleasant feeling. 
 
 "It's hard to come down in business," said Mrs. 
 Simpson. "Nobody knows but those who have done 
 it" 
 
 "Well, Father may be going down in the world," 
 cried Elsie fiercely, "but he's gone up in our thoughts ; 
 hasn't he, Mother? Hasn't he, Barbara? I think 
 Dad's every bit as splendid as Uncle Horace, who 
 went to the Front. He's lost nearly everything, and 
 is having a perfectly piggy time, and no pay, hardly, 
 and not making a fuss. I think he's simply splendid." 
 
 Mr. Simpson got up from the table and took his pipe 
 from the chimney-piece. After a moment or two he 
 turned round : "I say, girls, I've thought of a riddle : 
 Where do you go up when you think you're going 
 down? Why, South Pole, of course." And he 
 chuckled. 
 
 Elsie once more felt keenly irritated by this speci- 
 men of "Father's jokes," which the girls had learned
 
 SIGNALS 121 
 
 to regard with impatient tolerance almost from their 
 cradles, but Mrs. Simpson looked across at her husband 
 and thought wistfully how dear he was; because she 
 had come to that stage in human life when we know 
 that our loved ones are loved most intimately just for 
 the little things we laugh at in them.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SATURDAY AFTERNOON 
 
 IT was early on Saturday afternoon that Miss Pell- 
 ing stood in her little front garden gazing up into 
 the sky. Gladys was close behind her, and the strange 
 new sound which had come to mingle with the old 
 Flodmouth noises buzzed insistent through the scream- 
 ing of an engine. The bird-like thing moved quickly 
 over the roofs of the houses. 
 
 "An aeroplane." 
 
 "Yes; I hate 'em," said Miss Pelling. 
 
 "So do I," said Gladys, still goggling, though the 
 object of her search had disappeared into the blue- 
 grey distance. "They're wrong. If we'd been meant 
 to fly we should ha' been given wings on our shoul- 
 ders." 
 
 "Nonsense!" replied Miss Pelling briskly. "You 
 might as well say if we were meant to go by train 
 we should have been given boilers in our insides." 
 So Gladys retired, and Miss Pelling remained to greet 
 Mr. Binny and Mr. Simpson, who were walking down 
 the street at that moment, talking with the sort of 
 important and confidential seriousness which had been 
 absent from their conversation for some time. 
 
 "You are quite right," Mr. Simpson was saying. 
 "An unprotected lady . . . the man lodging only next 
 
 122
 
 SATURDAY AFTERNOON 123 
 
 door. . . ." He paused. "In absolute confidence, of 
 course," he added weightily. 
 
 "Of course. I thought you would agree with me," 
 said Mr. Binny. "There may be nothing in it, but 
 in these days it is impossible to be too careful." 
 
 Mr. Simpson dropped his voice a shade lower. 
 
 "I suppose you are certain it is a wig?" 
 
 "Absolutely," said Mr. Binny, with great firmness. 
 "I took the opportunity of gathering my apples, 
 though they were not ready there are five on my tree 
 this year, by the way, but I did not apply for preserv- 
 ing sugar and from the top of the ladder I could see 
 across Miss Felling's garden and into the next. The 
 man was asleep, and his wig had slipped on one side. 
 There was no mistaking it." 
 
 But Mr. Simpson still preserved enough of that gen- 
 erous tolerance, which before the war would have per- 
 mitted any sort of malefactor in any sort of disguise 
 to live unsuspected in the Avenue, to make him say 
 rather doubtfully 
 
 "There's nothing wrong in a wig, as such. Doesn't 
 he do anything else ?" 
 
 "That's just it!" cried Mr. Binny. "He doesn't do 
 anything else. He sits all day poring over some 
 sort of papers." 
 
 "Has he a foreign accent?" pursued Mr. Simpson. 
 
 "N-no," acknowledged Mr. Binny. "I asked him 
 the time one day, and I am bound to say his th's are 
 all right quite all right! I dare say he was born in 
 England." Then he wagged his head wisely: 
 "Foreigners are not the only ones." 
 
 "I don't like to think that," said Mr. Simpson warm- 
 ly. "I don't like to think that at all."
 
 124 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "Simpson," said Mr. Binny, putting a finger on his 
 friend's sleeve, "that is just where you are to blame 
 you and your like; you think too well of human na- 
 ture. This war would never 
 
 Then they had to return Miss Felling's salutation 
 at close quarters, and the conversation was broken off 
 for the present. When both gentlemen stood outside 
 the iron gate and the lady just within, Mr. Binny gave 
 a conspirator's glance up and down the Avenue and 
 said in a very low voice 
 
 "We were just speaking of your next-door neigh- 
 bour. I believe I saw him bringing you a basket of 
 flowers and vegetables last evening quite by accident, 
 of course and I thought it only right to give you a 
 word of warning." 
 
 Miss Felling started and glanced at Mr. Simpson, 
 but his face was also bodeful and glum. 
 
 "There's nothing wrong with the man, is there?" 
 she said. "He seems a very agreeable neighbour and 
 perfectly harmless." 
 
 "They all do," chanted Mr. Binny from somewhere 
 deep in his cadaverous stomach. 
 
 "We just thought we ought to give you a hint, 
 that's all," said Mr. Simpson more lightly. "The man 
 certainly wears a wig and only goes out after sunset. 
 And Mr. Binny thought of your unprotected state." 
 
 "Did he?" said Miss Felling; then she seemed to 
 bite off some further remark, and added calmly: 
 "Well, it is very kind of you both. But in my opinion 
 Mr. Montgomery is perfectly all right. Thank you, 
 all the same." 
 
 "Perhaps," suggested Mr. Binny nervously, "it 
 might be as well not to accept any more gifts from
 
 SATURDAY AFTERNOON 125 
 
 him. On the principle Ha! Ha! Fear the gifts 
 
 of the Greeks !" 
 
 "Oh!" Again Miss Felling paused and an inscru- 
 table look crossed her face. "The fruit and vegeta- 
 bles were delicious. They came from a friend of 
 Mr. Montgomery's near Bradford." 
 
 "Well, of course they may have done. It was only 
 that we felt it right to give you a hint. Wasn't that 
 so, Simpson?" said Mr. Binny, beginning to move 
 away. 
 
 "Lady alone . . . kindness the only motive, I'm 
 sure," muttered Mr. Simpson, also vaguely discon- 
 certed by something in Miss Felling's attitude. 
 
 Her door closed on polite farewells. The two gen- 
 tlemen walked a few steps down the street in silence. 
 
 "Simpson," then said Mr. Binny, with a red face, 
 "I believe she thinks I am jealous jealous of a lodger 
 from goodness knows where in a wig! That shows 
 what it is to do a kindness to a woman. He may 
 poison her with his green peas in future for all I shall 
 do to prevent it !" 
 
 "Never mind!" said Mr. Simpson, "if she does 
 think you're jealous she'll only be flattered." 
 
 "I don't care what she thinks," said Mr. Binny vio- 
 lently, going towards his own gate; "but I shall keep 
 my eye on that man for the sake of the Avenue." 
 
 Barbara was preparing tea in the kitchen, in a fume 
 of irritated sensibility very unlike her usual clear self- 
 control. She regretted having invited Brooke, and 
 said to herself that she hoped he would not come, but 
 when four o'clock was past and Elsie said casually: 
 "Your soldier's evidently not going to turn up, Bar-
 
 126 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 bara," she experienced an extraordinary sense of irri- 
 tation, and her heart began to beat, not in its normal, 
 unnoticed fashion, but with a thud, thud, thud, which 
 made her feel slightly sick. She wanted Brooke to 
 come quickly ... she never wanted to see him again. 
 . . . Oh, it was perfectly hateful ! 
 
 The clock ticked on as she sat there, so quiet to look 
 at but consumed within by an intolerable restlessness. 
 
 Tick! Tick! went the clock, and the Flodmouth 
 noises outside sounded louder and louder with the same 
 sort of hideous cadence they took on when one was ill 
 and had a high temperature. Summ . . . Summ . . . 
 Summ. . . . And that hideous high shriek of the en- 
 gine which one watched for and found unbearable 
 when it came. 
 
 "Barbara," said Mrs. Simpson placidly. "I think 
 we had better have tea. Will you tell your father? 
 I saw him outside a minute ago with Mr. Binny." 
 
 "Oh, yes. Quarter to five." 
 
 Barbara went out smiling; but as she was pouring 
 the hot water into the tea-pot, she felt a sudden leap 
 of the pulses and an almost uncontrollable anger. He 
 should come ! He must come ! 
 
 She carried the tea-pot down the passage, physically 
 troubled by this strange, unwonted gust of anger that 
 had assailed her. But when the iron gate clicked and 
 alert footsteps hurried up the path, she was able to 
 answer the door and call out in a cool, pleasant tone, 
 "Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Brooke!" so that no one 
 living could have guessed how her knees shook under 
 her in the sudden relief from suspense. 
 
 Mrs. Simpson also came forward, holding out a cor- 
 dial hand.
 
 SATURDAY AFTERNOON 127 
 
 "We were afraid you were not coming, Mr. 
 Brooke," she said. 
 
 "I am very sorry, I couldn't get away from the Hos- 
 pital before," he answered; and his absolute simplicity 
 influenced the Simpsons as it had done Miss Felling. 
 They were able at once to talk of ordinary things 
 safe and comfortable things, such as Brooke's wound 
 and the war and the weather while Mr. Simpson un- 
 loaded several of his best anecdotes. 
 
 Barbara sat down in silence and began pouring out 
 tea. She did not want to say anything. A warm 
 tide seemed to be flowing all through her, to the tips 
 of the work-reddened fingers that hovered so capably 
 among the cups. She felt for the moment that she 
 had everything she wanted in the whole world. She 
 was satisfied with his presence as he sat there talking 
 to the others and glancing at her now and then. She 
 knew now that she had not been deceived. His eyes 
 did indeed glow with that same inward fire which she 
 had seen last night when she lay on her bed in the 
 dark, and there was the deep seam on his left cheek 
 that made a furrow when he smiled. 
 
 She looked away, the red colour creeping over her 
 face from neck to forehead; then she glanced up half 
 nervously and saw his eyes upon her. She saw him 
 remove his glance with an effort. . . . 
 
 And all the time Mr. and Mrs. Simpson and Elsie 
 and he talked together while these two seemed to be 
 saying nothing at all to each other. But what they 
 said was indeed making the tea-scented air of that lit- 
 tle room vibrate beween them; the most tremendous 
 signals that can pass between a man and a woman 
 were being flashed every minute. As Barbara sat
 
 128 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 filling the tea-pot and pouring fresh tea, a sort of pas- 
 sion-lit space enveloped him and her, and produced 
 the illusion that the rest were a long way off. 
 
 Then Mr. Simpson asked Barbara a direct question, 
 and she had to join in the conversation, though the 
 extreme distance between her words and what was 
 going on unspoken, made her seem stilted and formal. 
 After a while she unconsciously ceased to answer or 
 make those flashing signals, and blank nothingness 
 stretched between her and Brooke : so he, too, became 
 formal, and felt vaguely disappointed without knowing 
 why. 
 
 But they had both longed so intensely for this meet- 
 ing and built such impossible hopes upon it, after the 
 fashion of lovers, that they were now suffering a reac- 
 tion. Brooke listened mechanically to Mr. Simpson's 
 anecdotes: "So the soldier said, I've already had my 
 face washed nineteen times, miss," . . . and to the 
 clang, clang! of the car-bell in the distance. 
 
 Brooke began to wish he had not come. He sat 
 there, unwilling to go and equally unwilling to stay, 
 while Barbara began to feel a blind unreasoning irrita- 
 tion against everybody, Brooke included. He was 
 somehow failing her she was not getting what she 
 wanted something for which her whole being was 
 keyed up for and expectant and yet she did not know 
 what she wanted. 
 
 He saw more clearly. It was plain enough to him 
 that if he could but get rid of the Simpson family and 
 be alone with Barbara even though they only talked 
 of the weather there might be some chance of re- 
 establishing that wonderful state of things which he 
 mentally called "hitting it off together."
 
 SATURDAY AFTERNOON 129 
 
 At last he rose to take his leave, and said: "Well, 
 I think I must be going on to interview this baby now, 
 Mrs. Simpson. Your daughter kindly said she would 
 help me to brave the lady in charge and present the 
 toy. I'm rather frightened of Mrs. Hobby she does 
 seem so capable. I have a feeling she might smack me 
 and send me to bed." 
 
 "Oh!" Mrs. Simpson hesitated, unable to refuse; 
 but Mr. Simpson came to the rescue with the obtuse- 
 ness not rare in the fathers of pretty daughters. "Look 
 here, Brooke," he announced handsomely, "I'll walk 
 with you as far. I am going that way to see the Vicar 
 about some Coal Club accounts which I audit. Kill 
 two birds with one stone, eh?" And he accompanied 
 his guest out into the little hall, feeling sure that any 
 man must prefer his society to Barbara's. 
 
 "Thank you very much," said Brooke, without en- 
 thusiasm. "Good-bye, Mrs. Simpson. Good-bye, 
 Miss Elsie." He kept Barbara for the last, hoping 
 against hope that she would offer to accompany her 
 father and yet finding himself unable to suggest it be- 
 cause of some subtle withdrawal in her attitude which 
 made him uncertain of her wishes. Didn't she, after 
 all, want to come? . . . And she could not break the 
 spell which her own emotions and the presence of her 
 family laid on her ready tongue. For some prepos- 
 terous reason which she vaguely despised and failed to 
 understand, she was unable to say, plump out: "I'll 
 come too, Father." All her clear simplicity seemed to 
 have departed as she touched Brooke's hand, murmur- 
 ing: "Good-bye. I hope your arm will soon be quite 
 better." 
 
 "Looks like it." And he got himself a few steps
 
 130 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 nearer to the door. "Scarcely hope to see you again. 
 I'm going to Scarcliffe the beginning of the week, I 
 expect." 
 
 "Beautiful air : you'll like that," said Mr. Simpson, 
 "Oh, you'll love the sea-bathing," said Elsie. 
 They stood for a moment in a group round the front 
 door, then the two men detached themselves, walking 
 away down the Avenue. Mr. Simpson was talking 
 and they could hear his familiar chuckle. A few yards 
 away Brooke looked over his shoulder and Barbara 
 waved her hand, but so did Mrs. Simpson and Elsie. 
 
 "I wonder if we shall ever see him again," said 
 Elsie, closing the door. 
 
 "Most likely not. He will no doubt return to 
 France after a few weeks' light duty at Scarcliffe," 
 said Mrs. Simpson, going back into the room. "But 
 I am very glad to have shown him a little attention; 
 he has behaved so well about that child, has he not, 
 Barbara?" 
 
 Mrs. Simpson took up her knitting as she waited for 
 an answer, but the eyes of her soul were bent on her 
 daughter. 
 
 "Oh, yes; he seems quite a decent sort," said Bar- 
 bara after a momentary pause. "Well, I'd better get 
 this tea cleared away." 
 
 "Yes; the bread-and-butter will do for supper," 
 said Mrs. Simpson readily, at once allowing the door 
 to be closed in her face. She could not overcome this 
 delicacy which had perhaps allowed the girls too much 
 freedom, but which had given room for something 
 very vital and real to grow up in them. The same 
 quality brought her many affectionate acquaintances
 
 SATURDAY AFTERNOON 131 
 
 and few friends, but she was so engrossed by her pas- 
 sion for her children that only leavings remained for 
 outsiders, a thing people are quick to instinctively 
 realise. 
 
 But Barbara remained unaware of this, and as soon 
 as she was beyond the door put down her tray and 
 ran very quickly up to the top of the house, where she 
 leaned far out of her bedroom window with both 
 hands on the grimy sill, and just managed to catch 
 sight of the two men before they turned the corner 
 of the Avenue: her father slightly looking up as he 
 talked, with his cork-like step and his waistcoat ad- 
 vanced, as usual; Brooke, alert, lean, but somehow 
 having the air of forlornness about him in his ill-fit- 
 ting blue suit which had struck her first outside the 
 Cinema Hall. It struck her now, with the subtle ap- 
 peal which the rare dependence of a high-spirited child 
 will have for a grown-up person. 
 
 She leaned further out. ... It seemed incredible 
 that they should be going out of each other's lives for 
 ever in this way. Then she saw him swallowed up 
 in the crowds that passed the end of the Avenue. 
 
 "Barbara !" said Elsie's voice behind, "what are you 
 doing? You'll fall out!" 
 
 Barbara drew back and faced her sister. 
 
 "Well, what now? Can't I even look out of the, 
 window ?" 
 
 Elsie sat down on the bed with her hand pressed to> 
 her back, but smiling impishly. 
 
 "Mother feels rather relieved he has gone for good.. 
 But she needn't worry herself about him coming where 
 he's not wanted. He's as proud as Lucifer. I'm rather 
 surprised you weren't a bit more decent to him, though.
 
 132 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 You asked him, and then acted as if you didn't much 
 want him." 
 
 "What rot!" said Barbara. "Your imagination 
 runs away with you." 
 
 "Well," said Elsie, "my imagination makes me see 
 real things sometimes that other people can't; and 
 my advice to you, Miss Barbie, is to leave that young 
 man alone." 
 
 "I never thought of doing anything else," said Bar- 
 bara. 
 
 "Well, you won't have a chance. But he isn't the 
 kind you can send off and whistle back and do as you 
 like with: no Bellerby tactics will succeed with him, 
 my girl" 
 
 "How ridiculous you are! As if there were any 
 idea of anything!" cried Barbara. 
 
 "I've eyes in my head if I am only fifteen, said 
 Elsie. "The way he looked at you! However, he's 
 gone now, and you will probably never see him any 
 more." 
 
 And as Barbara went down the stairs those words 
 echoed drearily through the house, or so it seemed to 
 her, though they were only echoing and re-echoing in 
 her own mind. 
 
 Mr. Simpson returned after a while saying that he 
 had met Frank Garret; they stopped to speak, and he 
 was introduced to Brooke, whom he had remembered 
 seeing with Barbara in the town on Friday morning. 
 "Asked if he were a Canadian cousin, when I said the 
 young man came from Canada green-eyed monster, 
 eh, Barbara? He seemed worried to hear it wasn't 
 even a half-cousin."
 
 SATURDAY AFTERNOON 133 
 
 For Mr. Simpson felt convinced that his daughter 
 and Frank Garret would make a match of it in the 
 end, and that her present attitude was only a needed 
 discipline which she was giving her tardy lover. He'd 
 taken his time, now she would take hers and Mr. 
 Simpson approved, but thought it should not go on too 
 long. In the present insecurity of everything he clung 
 to the idea of having one daughter safely established 
 who might afford an asylum to her sister and mother 
 if anything happened to him: for the old security had 
 gone from the Avenue and from Flodmouth and from 
 life they had, whether or no, to live dangerously. 
 
 Later in the afternoon Mr. Simpson once more 
 acutely realised the change which war had brought into 
 the mental atmosphere. He was sitting in a back 
 room with the Vicar, who had been out when he called 
 and had followed him later to No. 28. The Coal 
 Club accounts were in order on the table, and the two 
 men sat for a few minutes talking of parish matters. 
 Then the Vicar suddenly said 
 
 "Simpson, will you tell me the truth if you know 
 it? Why do the congregations get smaller every 
 Sunday? I work my heart out, managing with no 
 Curate and taking all the daily services myself. God 
 knows how we get along ourselves on the stipend, with 
 the price of everything doubled, but we do. I don't 
 want to say anything about that. Only it seems ter- 
 ribly hard to see less and less interest taken in the 
 Church and everything connected with it. I know I 
 must have failed somewhere, but I can't tell where. 
 I feel beaten, Simpson." 
 
 Hard work, a delicate family, poor food and a high- 
 strung, nervous constitution had sapped Mr. Walters's
 
 134 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 power of resistance, or he could never have done the 
 thing he did then, which was to hide his face in his 
 hands and say with a sort of groan: "Oh, Simpson, 
 it's agony ! I see my people groping for comfort, and 
 I don't seem able to help them. They don't want me. 
 They don't want the Church. And yet we ought to 
 be giving out strength and comfort. I go to see those 
 who have lost sons and husbands, and they look at 
 me so terribly, asking why God lets it all happen . . . 
 and I can't tell them ... I don't know myself. I 
 can only tell them to trust. And they want a definite 
 answer." 
 
 Mr. Simpson fidgeted with the papers; though he 
 and the Vicar had been intimately associated in Church 
 work during several years, they had never before 
 talked together about their faith in God. He found it 
 impossible to say anything about that, so he replied 
 uncomfortably : "You do your best. Every one knows 
 you do your best. Your own son is a prisoner. You 
 can't do any more." He paused. "All places of wor- 
 ship have diminished congregations." 
 
 The Vicar uncovered his face, which was white and 
 drawn and rather mean of feature. "Well, I must go 
 home and write my sermon for to-morrow night," he 
 said, rising. 
 
 "Every one knows how carefully you prepare your 
 sermons," said Mr. : |Simpson, seeking to give comfort. 
 "Binny was only, remarking last week how scholarly 
 they were and well expressed." 
 
 A faint light glimmered over the Vicar's face, the 
 sign of that indestructible susceptibility of the preacher 
 or writer to public praise. "I'm glad Binny liked it." 
 Then his look clouded again. "I don't know how it
 
 SATURDAY AFTERNOON 135 
 
 is. I don't seem able to get hold of the people. They 
 stand aside and say the Church has failed, bu? iEe^ 
 are as much a part of the Church as I am. It's tfrey, r 
 who have failed as well as me." He sighed. "Some- 
 times, Simpson, I almost feel as if Christianity had 
 failed. But I know it's not that. If only I had the 
 power to seize hold of it and show it as it is, flamingly 
 alive. . . . Why, it's religion alone which is making 
 people able to endure so wonderfully the loss of all 
 they hold dear, but it's so much a part of them that 
 they don't realise it is a heritage they don't know 
 where they get the power of an endless life from." 
 
 "No," said Mr. Simpson, almost as embarrassed as 
 if he had met his clergyman in the Avenue without 
 clothes there was something equally strange to him 
 in this glimpse of the Vicar's naked soul. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Simpson, the accounts are all right. I 
 must be going now." And they shook hands, the 
 Vicar in his usual clerical manner and Mr. Simpson 
 with that odd, mingled sense of superiority and in- 
 feriority which an ordinary Englishman feels in the 
 presence of his spiritual adviser. Then Mr. Simpson 
 stood on the doorstep and watched the thin, rather 
 shabbily clad figure go down the Avenue. He felt 
 sorry and yet faintly contemptuous. 
 
 And the Vicar brooded unhappily as he walked, 
 turning over mechanical platitudes for the next day's 
 sermon in his mind and oppressed by a heavy con- 
 sciousness of failure. 
 
 He did not realise that at the very moment of his 
 deepest discouragement, more people in the Avenue 
 were seeking after God than had ever done so since 
 the bow-windowed houses were first built. It might
 
 136 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 not be in his way, but quite surely all the prayers and 
 agonies of those who wanted light were flowing into 
 unseen channels working in silence on the tremen- 
 dous scale of the Creator. It was perhaps a faint con- 
 sciousness of this, deep beyond knowledge or reason, 
 which just kept the Vicar from despair. 
 
 But no sign of these things was apparent in his 
 bearing as he pulled up to speak with mechanical 
 cheerfulness to Miss Felling about 'her hospital work, 
 and then plodded on once more to his belated tea.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE AMATEUR DETECTIVES 
 
 FROM the outside, No. 28 Chestnut Avenue looked 
 much as it had ever done a comfortable, mid- 
 dle-class residence lived in by well-clad, sufficiently fed 
 people. But to another way of seeing it was a little 
 house standing half-dismantled and forlorn. The 
 storm of war had indeed torn across it with such star- 
 tling suddenness that those inside were yet gathering 
 what remained to them from among the wreckage with 
 a kind of patient surprise. 
 
 In thousands of houses, even in Flodmouth, others 
 were doing the same; silently, without a tear that 
 could be seen, they were getting on with this first work 
 of reconstruction which has to come before all the rest. 
 But almost every day their hearts were hurt afresh by 
 wanting something that had been spoilt or broken. 
 For instance, Mrs. Simpson's birthday came, and there 
 was no present from Jim, though he had always bought 
 her one with his own pennies since he was two. And 
 now it was the August Bank Holiday which the Simp- 
 sons had annually spent with Uncle Horace at his 
 pleasant suburban villa. They had sometimes wished 
 they were not going, but now they thought of him 
 coming out to greet them with his light suit and his
 
 138 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 sweet-pea in his button-hole and his unenthusiastic 
 wife in the background, and they longed inexpressibly 
 or, at least, Mr. and Mrs. Simpson did for such a 
 sunshiny day to come again. 
 
 But Mr. Simpson did not seem at all like this as he 
 shouldered his spade on this August Bank Holiday 
 and went forth to dig his own new potatoes nor did 
 the other Flodmouth folk in like case. There was, 
 indeed, quite a pleasant sylvan chorus murmuring 
 through the town. 
 
 "Seen my peas? Wonderful peas!" 
 
 "My potaties are a picture you should come along 
 and have a look at them." 
 
 "Now, / have a vegetable marrow " 
 
 But though it all sounded so trivial, it had helped 
 thousands of sorrowful people in England to keep 
 sane in mind and body until the very worst of their 
 suspense or sorrow was over, and it had also made 
 potatoes so plentiful that they could be sold in the 
 midst of war-time for a penny a pound. As Mr. 
 Simpson and Mr. Binny came down the Avenue to- 
 gether, comparing the size of the potatoes in their 
 baskets, they were not just a tall, thin man and a little 
 fat one talking rather foolishly about gardening 
 they were a sign of the tremendous latent vitality of 
 England which is everywhere, only awaiting the right 
 call. 
 
 These two gentlemen were both on an errand of 
 gallantry, taking an offering to little Mrs. Du Caine at 
 the end cf the street. Mr. Simpson's potatoes of his 
 best, but put in carelessly; Mr. Binny's most neatly 
 packed, with a sprig of mint on the top. A few 
 minutes later, Mr. Wilson also walked ponderously by
 
 THE AMATEUR DETECTIVES 139 
 
 on a similar errand, and on the very doorstep he en- 
 countered little Dean, a clerk with a weak chest and 
 five children, who was all alight with the pleasure 
 of being "in it" with the other men in the street, and 
 having something to give. The way he cocked up a 
 perky eye at the important, white-spatted Mr. Wilson 
 and said with a jovial man-to-man air, "Have you 
 sprayed yours?" was really pleasant to see. And 
 they walked back down the Avenue side by side for 
 the first time in all the years they had lived there 
 together. 
 
 In the afternoon Mr. Simpson was assailed for a few 
 moments by a sense of the blank "queerness" of this 
 Bank Holiday as compared with the past, but Barbara 
 had asked Mrs. Du Caine and her babies to tea, and 
 they were soon all laughing and talking in the back 
 garden: Mr. Simpson rather pleased to bring out a 
 tale he had recently abstracted from a comic paper, 
 about a nurse and a tattooed sailor, for the benefit of 
 the guest, and Mrs. Du Caine hiding deep in her heart 
 all her own thoughts about those past Bank Holidays 
 which now looked like little glimpses of Paradise. 
 Mrs. Simpson did not talk much, but the effect of her 
 presence lay on the group like sunshine; though they 
 were hardly aware of her, it would have been all 
 different without her. 
 
 Talk went on round the table, punctuated by the 
 cries and gurglings of the children, and they spoke 
 of the Bellerbys next door, who were staying with 
 Blanche. 
 
 "Did you see that picture of the bride in nursing 
 dress in the Daily Pictorial? It's perfectly lovely, 
 isn't it?" said Mrs. Du Caine.
 
 140 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "But she doesn't nurse, does she?" said Barbara. 
 
 "No. I think she is somehow attached to the Hos- 
 pital run by her mother-in-law." 
 
 "Hullo, Barbie," exclaimed Elsie. "Blanche has 
 bested you again! You never got your picture pub- 
 lished anywhere, even after sticking at it for over two 
 years, here and at Bournemouth." 
 
 Barbara laughed. 
 
 "I'm sure I don't care. Look at the military 
 awards ! They say nearly all the men do things worthy 
 of a decoration over and over again, only nobody 
 happens to see." 
 
 "That's it. Well, they don't do it for that." 
 
 And dimly a feeling, too vague for thought, glowed 
 in the hearts of the little group . . . they didn't do it 
 for that, either. . . . 
 
 Mrs. Du Caine spoke. 
 
 "I hear that wounded soldier who came to see about 
 Miss Felling's Lillie's baby is still at Scarcliffe." 
 
 Barbara moved a plate and said quickly, with her 
 eyes on it : "Who told you so ? Has some one heard 
 from him?" 
 
 "Yes; Miss Felling. Seems she had a letter from 
 him this morning. He expects to leave for the Front 
 in about three weeks. His arm has mended wonder- 
 fully quickly in that fine air." 
 
 "He behaved very well," announced Mr. Simpson 
 once again. "I walked with him myself to Mrs. 
 Hobby's, where the child is being brought up. He 
 said it had eyes just like his brother's." 
 
 "You never told us that before," said Barbara. 
 
 "No; didn't think of it. In my opinion " 
 
 "Wow-oo-oh !" interrupted Mrs. Du Caine's young-
 
 THE AMATEUR DETECTIVES 141' 
 
 est baby and the peaceful group being broken up, 
 there was no more mention of Brooke. 
 
 On the following Saturday afternoon Miss Felling 
 was in her garden entertaining little Kitchener from a 
 sense of duty which prompted her to see for herself 
 if the child were well and happy. Verbal communica- 
 tion on this point with the party most concerned being 
 impossible, she set him on her knee, sent Mrs. Hobby 
 to take tea in the kitchen, and anxiously scrutinised 
 his limbs and general appearance. He already seemed 
 less fretful than on first arrival, and smiled at the red 
 flower which Miss Felling dangled before him. A 
 gentle peace lay on all the little back gardens at this 
 hour, and from over the wall on the right came a gentle 
 but none the less quite audible snore. From the one 
 on the left came the gentle chink of a tea-cup, proving 
 that Mr. Binny took tea in the open air after an 
 unusually trying week at business, complicated by a 
 slight liver attack. 
 
 From where he sat he could not avoid seeing the 
 domestic group on the other side of the wall in a sort 
 of hazy silhouette against the sunshine. Nothing 
 definite, but in the general effect of Miss Felling's neat 
 head and erect figure as she waggled the red flower, 
 he saw something rather intimately charming. 
 
 Without any definite intention of making advances 
 and yet knowing in the pleasantly titillated depths 
 of him that it was an advance he moved to the wall, 
 coughed and remarked 
 
 "Delightful weather. That is er a favoured 
 young person." 
 
 But at that precise moment the snores over the
 
 142 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 other wall ceased, perhaps owing to Mr. Binny's cough, 
 and the lodger got up, settled his tie, rubbed his eyes 
 and said pleasantly 
 
 "Delightful afternoon, Miss Felling." 
 
 "Beautiful!" said Miss Felling, addressing both 
 gentlemen by moving her head first in one direction 
 and then in the other. She was a very sensible, high- 
 spirited woman, but the fact remains though no doubt 
 new conditions can alter the laws of nature that the 
 presence of two males endeavouring to attract atten- 
 tion has thus far power to stimulate the most sensible 
 female. 
 
 "Fine laurel, that," said Mr. Binny, ignoring Mr. 
 Montgomery and assuming an intimate air. "When I 
 planted it for you, Miss Felling, I scarcely 
 thought " 
 
 "Those laurels grow in every cottage garden where 
 I come from; they remind me of home," said Mr. 
 Montgomery. 
 
 Mr. Binny lifted his head like a war-horse slightly 
 past its prime, but with a lot of kick still available. 
 
 "Your home, sir?" he said. "May I ask where you 
 formerly resided?" 
 
 "Neighbourhood of Bradford," replied Mr. Mont- 
 gomery, with what Mr. Binny felt to be intentional 
 vagueness. "As I was saying before to you, Miss 
 Felling " 
 
 "I hate mignonette!" said Mr. Binny defiantly; 
 "coarse-growing thing, I consider it." 
 
 "Ah!" said Mr. Montgomery, gathering up his 
 newspaper. "I dare say you're no flower lover. Odd 
 thing, some men don't " 
 
 "Roses!" interposed Miss Felling hastily, like one
 
 THE AMATEUR DETECTIVES 143 
 
 who throws a wet cloth on a rising fire. "Roses are 
 my favourite, of course." She smiled from one gentle- 
 man to the other. "Can't beat roses, in my opinion." 
 
 "Yes, yes," agreed Mr. Binny at once, "you 
 always have been fond of roses, of course. I well 
 remember ' ' 
 
 "Well, give me mignonette!" repeated Mr. Mont- 
 gomery, who was not an easy person to shut the door 
 of a conversation on. "I will send you some that I 
 have received from the country to-day, Miss Felling, 
 and you will be able to judge for yourself." 
 
 With that he bowed as could be judged by the 
 disappearance on the other side of the wall of all but 
 his forehead and discreet grey toupee and then 
 walked away leaving a flowery prospect behind him, 
 which Mr. Binny deeply resented: otherwise it seems 
 probable that a conversation which took place rather 
 later, when the baby had been sent home, could never 
 possibly have been shared by so just a gentleman. 
 
 At about five o'clock then, Mr. Binny was still in 
 his garden, occupied by this most warping of all 
 emotions, when Miss Felling came out to fetch some 
 knitting which she had left on her garden seat. This 
 time they observed the strict back-garden etiquette 
 of the Avenue, which is to ignore a neighbour's 
 presence unless invited to become aware of it, then to 
 say, with artless surprise, "Oh, you there, Miss So- 
 and-So!" 
 
 Mr. Binny was rigid in these matters, as a rule, but 
 humanity is humanity after all, and when he tried to 
 fix one eye on Miss Felling and the other on a weed 
 he failed, pulling up instead a promising young carrot :
 
 144 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 so he straightened his back, advanced to the wall, 
 coughed, and made himself officially visible. 
 
 "Looks like rain." 
 
 Miss Felling gave the slight start which is deemed 
 correct, and answered in a company voice 
 
 "Oh, that you, Mr. Binny? Yes, the weather does 
 seem to be breaking up." 
 
 She wore a magnificent spray of mignonette, and 
 this may have unconsciously inspired Mr. Binny's next 
 remark: anyway he came very close to the wall, 
 dropped his voice and said gravely : "Miss Felling, I 
 have been feeling inwardly a little uncomfortable of 
 late." 
 
 "Oh! Do let me get you some of the peppermint 
 cordial I always have by me," she said. "It is a most 
 excellent remedy." 
 
 Mr. Binny flushed slightly. 
 
 "I was not referring to er physical symptoms," 
 he said. "The fact is, you are a lady living quite 
 unprotected and alone." He paused. It cannot be 
 denied that Miss Felling wondered, with a faint thrill, 
 what was coming. "You have to be careful about 
 your neighbours," he concluded. 
 
 Something very deep within Miss Felling cried out : 
 "Is that all?" But she answered briskly: "What on 
 earth do you mean, Mr. Binny? Are you thinking of 
 stealing my silver? If so, I may as well tell you it is 
 at the bank." 
 
 Mr. Binny afforded her the politeness of a mechan- 
 ical smile before continuing : "You may have noticed 
 Montgomery wears a wig. Why does he wear a wig ?" 
 
 "Because he's bald, I suppose," said Miss Felling, 
 rather surprised.
 
 THE AMATEUR DETECTIVES 145 
 
 Mr. Binny came closer. His knees touched the 
 bricks, his chin just hung over the top of the wall. 
 
 "But is he bald?" 
 
 The portentous gravity of Mr. Binny's tone caused 
 Miss Felling also to press close to the wall, looking up, 
 but she said nothing. 
 
 "If he's not bald why does he wear a wig?" pursued 
 Mr. Binny. 
 
 "I don't know," said Miss Felling. 
 
 "Ah!" said Mr. Binny. "That's just it." 
 
 They rested on this for a moment; then Miss Pel- 
 ling shook off the too intense gravity of the mental 
 atmosphere. 
 
 "What nonsense!" she caid. "You really can't 
 pretend he has a German accent. It's English, and, 
 what's more, it's West Riding. You can't have any- 
 thing much more English than that, can you?" 
 
 "Um! . . . There's no knowing. . . ." Mr. 
 Binny's pauses held far more than his words. 
 
 "You don't mean to say " And Miss Felling, 
 
 influenced against her will, also dealt in impressive 
 pauses. She stared up at him and he stared down 
 at her. 
 
 "I say nothing. The crux of the situation lies in 
 this: is he bald, or is he not bald? If he is, then the 
 use of a wig is legitimate, of course. But if he is 
 not " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 They goggled at each other, pausing again on that 
 a pause fuller than ever of a number of things. 
 
 "Is it because he wants to conceal his hair?" asked 
 Mr. Binny. 
 
 "You mean a disguise?" murmured Miss Felling.
 
 146 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "I say nothing," repeated Mr. Binny. "But you 
 are a woman of keen perceptions and clear thoughts. 
 Why would a man with brown hair wear a grey wig 
 or vice versa?" 
 
 "There certainly is something not open about the 
 idea," agreed Miss Felling. 
 
 "And those papers he is always writing and never 
 visibly posting?" 
 
 "And his going out only after dark?" added Miss 
 Felling. 
 
 "Possibly to take them to a distant post office," sug- 
 gested Mr. Binny. 
 
 "It certainly does look odd, when you begin to 
 think about it." 
 
 Blacker and blacker grew the shadow upon Mr. 
 Montgomery. Closer and closer drew Miss Felling 
 and Mr. Binny. 
 
 "I think we ought to do something," said Miss 
 Felling, by now rather anxious herself. "We ought to 
 find out definitely if he is all right or not. If he is, we 
 are doing him a great injustice. If he is not, we ought 
 to inform the police. But if we inform the police and 
 he turns out to be quite harmless, he will leave the 
 Avenue and Miss Brown will lose a good lodger for 
 nothing. And she has a hard enough struggle to keep 
 her old mother as it is." Miss Felling paused, and the 
 joys of the amateur detective vanished before the 
 thought of poor, harassed Miss Brown. "Oh, Mr. 
 Binny, I don't think there is any real need to interfere, 
 do you?" 
 
 "We must think of our country," said Mr. Binny, 
 and he threw out his chest as he spoke, believing him-
 
 THE AMATEUR DETECTIVES 147 
 
 self to be animated by pure patriotism. But Miss 
 Felling was still concerned with Miss Brown. 
 
 "If we could only secure a proof one way or another 
 without Mr. Montgomery knowing," she said, and her 
 brain worked backwards and forwards, like a mouse in 
 a trap, seeking a solution of the difficulty. At last she 
 cried out, "Oh, Mr. Binny! I've got it!" 
 
 He looked rather superior and incredulous. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 She bent nearer and whispered eagerly. His gaze 
 focused. She whispered some more. His superior 
 smile vanished, then he also whispered; finally they 
 drew apart. 
 
 "I shall see you to-morrow afternoon, then, if 
 fine?" 
 
 "I forgot; it's a Sunday, Mr. Binny." 
 
 "Oh! I'd forgotten it. Well, soldiers fight on 
 Sundays. They have to. Anything for the sake of 
 your country." . . . 
 
 "That's just it." 
 
 They nodded with immense meaning at each other, 
 then Miss Pilling went back to the house to prepare 
 for her night's work at the Hospital. 
 
 Next morning rose showery, and the amateur detec- 
 tives went about with an anxious eye on the weather. 
 But towards noon it cleared, and the whole of Flod- 
 mouth was luminous in misty sunshine as Mr. Binny. 
 returned from the old church in the heart of the city. 
 He saw the tall warehouses and the spars of ships 
 rising into the greyish-gold air, but he did not realise 
 the beauty because it was a part of his life, and of 
 his father's and grandfather's lives before him. He
 
 148 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 loved the old town unawares, as Mr. Simpson did, and 
 Miss Felling, and many others who often said they 
 disliked it. When he got home he read during the 
 Sunday midday meal as usual, but the words failed to 
 convey ideas because he was going over in his mind 
 the programme of the afternoon. Precisely at two he 
 took up a book and went to Miss Felling's door. 
 
 "Oh! Is Miss Felling at home?" and he displayed 
 the book to afford a pretext for his visit. 
 
 "Yes; will you walk in?" said Gladys, already in 
 outdoor attire, having been given a long afternoon's 
 holiday. 
 
 He entered, and the door of the room closed upon 
 him. Miss Felling was discovered bending over a 
 fishing-rod. 
 
 "You've found it, then?" said Mr. Binny in a low 
 tone, advancing with eagerness. "Does it run all 
 right?" 
 
 "Yes; haven't had it out for years, but I put it 
 away carefully." 
 
 "Hush! Is that his step?" 
 
 The room was at the back of the house, and they 
 could hear heavy footsteps through the open window. 
 
 "He's going into the garden," said Miss Felling 
 tensely, glancing at the clock. "He'll sit down in his 
 usual place near the wall under the lilic bush. In ten 
 minutes he will be asleep." 
 
 "We will remain by the window and speak very 
 softly," directed Mr. Binny. 
 
 The front door banged. Mr. Binny and Miss Felling 
 started violently. 
 
 "Only Gladys going out," breathed Miss Felling. 
 
 The house seemed intensely quiet. . . .
 
 THE AMATEUR DETECTIVES 149 
 
 "I hope you have put on a large, strong hook," 
 whispered Mr. Binny. 
 
 "Yes. You ought to be removing your boots now. 
 It will save time," said Miss Felling. 
 
 "I scarcely like " began Mr. Binny, drawing in 
 
 his boots as a mute protest against stocking-feet in the 
 presence of a lady. 
 
 "Bosh! If it were your shirt when it's your duty 
 to England !" retorted Miss Felling. 
 
 "Very well," said Mr. Binny, rather stiffly, and he 
 went out into the passage ; he was not going to take his 
 boots off in a lady's drawing-room even for England. 
 
 He returned, stepping gingerly, acutely conscious of 
 his socks; then they went down the garden path to- 
 gether. A pebble hurt Mr. Binny very much indeed, 
 but he uttered no sound. She, in thin stockings, bore 
 the situation with equal fortitude. They both silently 
 mounted upon a seat in Miss Felling's garden, which 
 had been placed back to back with one in Mr. Mont- 
 gomery's garden. Miss Felling held the line as being 
 more used to handling it and author of the idea. 
 
 "Hush!" she said, gently moving apart the branches 
 of the lilac tree. "You keep them in that position. 
 Now!" 
 
 A snore proceeded from the seat below. 
 
 "How long does he generally sleep?" whispered Mr. 
 Binny, rather anxiously, having no mind to be caught 
 even by a spy in this situation. 
 
 "Half an hour at least; every afternoon, in fact," 
 whispered Miss Felling. "Whatever you do, keep those 
 branches apart!" she entreated. 
 
 Mr. Binny did as he was told, but it was immediately 
 after Sunday's lunch and his strained attitude would
 
 I5Q THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 have been trying to an empty young man ; to a middle- 
 aged full one it was almost apoplexy. 
 
 Then Mr. Montgomery stirred, and Mr. Binny sud- 
 denly let go the branches. Miss Felling gasped. They 
 waited in tense silence for a space which seemed an 
 hour, but was really just three minutes, and then 
 began all over again. 
 
 "Hush!" 
 
 "Hush!" 
 
 The branches once more apart Miss Felling once 
 more dangling the fish-hook over Mr. Montgomery's 
 unconscious wig with a dexterity born of many pleasant 
 hours in Bridlington Bay. 
 
 "Now!" whispered Mr. Binny. 
 
 Miss Felling leaned far forward. The hook de- 
 scended : caught. There was a wild yell from the little 
 gentleman next door, and an exceedingly well-made 
 grey wig dangled on the line behind the lilac boughs 
 which Mr. Binny had again ceased to hold apart. 
 
 In one second, he and Miss Felling alighted from the 
 seat, hid the rod under the wall with a dexterity and 
 speed incredible in any lady or gentleman over twelve, 
 and sat down trying to look calm. But in that one 
 moment they had noticed the innocent, egg-like bald- 
 ness of Mr. Montgomery, and the situation loomed 
 perfectly terrible before them. In addition to the 
 pain in his feet, Mr. Binny endured acute mental 
 agony. He considered what would be said on 'Change 
 during the ensuing week, and already the ribald jokes 
 of the Flodmouth merchants seemed to be hurtling 
 about his ears. 
 
 It was then that Miss Felling's resourcefulness rose 
 to a point far above anything Mr. Binny could have
 
 THE AMATEUR DETECTIVES 151 
 
 imagined. Jumping up, she called into the next 
 garden, "Oh, Mr. Montgomery! I have had such a 
 shock. I fear something of yours has come over the 
 wall. If you will wait a moment I will pass it back." 
 
 "What's happened?" bleated Mr. Montgomery, 
 holding his hand to his scalp and still dazed by his 
 heavy after-dinner nap. "What's taken it?" 
 
 "Perhaps the wind," suggested Mr. Binny. 
 
 "I can't understand how such a thing could happen," 
 said Mr. Montgomery pathetically, still holding his 
 head with one hand while he accepted the wig from 
 Miss Felling with the other. Then his brain cleared a 
 little. "And there is no wind." 
 
 "Perhaps a a bird," said Miss Felling. "I have 
 heard of magpies taking rings, and eagles carrying off 
 babies, and so on." 
 
 "Did you see one?" said Mr. Montgomery, adjusting 
 his disorganised wig as well as he could. "This cer- 
 tainly does seem as if it might have been torn by the 
 beak of a strong bird, but I can scarcely think it 
 possible." 
 
 "I fancied I did see a a something just flick over 
 the wall," faltered Miss Felling. Then it came over 
 her all of a sudden that she wasn't going to imperil 
 her immortal soul alone. Mr. Binny was going to be 
 in it too. "Didn't you see something?" she said, 
 addressing him. 
 
 "Y-yes," said Mr. Binny reluctantly. "I couldn't 
 make out any any particular plumage, though." 
 
 "Dear me ! This really is most strange," said Mr. 
 Montgomery, immensely interested now that he had 
 his wig on and felt himself again. "I really must put 
 down all the particulars at once if you will dictate
 
 152 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 them exactly in your own words. This episode will 
 form a most valuable addition to the book of reminis- 
 cences which I am now engaged upon." He lowered 
 his voice confidentially. "As a matter of fact, I came 
 here to obtain leisure and freedom from interruption 
 in order to complete my book. I found this impossible 
 at home, owing to the many claims on my time. 
 Having been Mayor of my native town on three occa- 
 sions, and Sheriff twice, I am naturally much engaged 
 in public matters." 
 
 Mr. Binny and Miss Felling did not look at each 
 other. At last Mr. Binny said in a subdued mono- 
 tone : "I shall hope to buy a copy of your book." 
 
 "No, no. I shall hope to send you one. And I 
 may give your names to verify this most interesting 
 experience? It certainly seems to point to the exist- 
 ence of eagles still in this part of Yorkshire. Perhaps 
 at Scarcliffe " 
 
 "If you don't mind," said Binny miserably, "I think 
 Miss Felling has rather an objection to any sort of 
 er publicity. I think she would rather you mentioned 
 no names." He turned an agonised, beseeching eye 
 on her. "Wouldn't you, Miss Felling?" 
 
 She paused a moment, irresolute. Here was a 
 chance to pay him out for all his sins of omission 
 during many years. Then her real liking for him took 
 the upper hand once more. "I certainly should prefer 
 keeping the matter between ourselves," she said. 
 "Any mention of my name or Mr. Binny's would bring 
 crowds of curious people to gaze at our houses, and we 
 should be deluged with inquiries. I am sure you will 
 see the objection yourself, Mr. Montgomery?" 
 
 "A lady's privacy is very dear to her," urged Mr.
 
 THE AMATEUR DETECTIVES 153 
 
 Binny, "and so many great men have had troubles 
 with their hair. Delilah ... I mean Absalom . . ." 
 
 He mopped his brow, his voice trailing off into 
 silence under the eye of Miss Felling, and he began to 
 grow angry with her he began to say to himself that 
 she had led him into this ridiculous situation by an 
 insane plan that only a woman 
 
 Then Mr. Montgomery interposed, not without 
 dignity : "Of course, I should never use a lady's name 
 against her will," and he retired indoors to put his wig 
 straight. 
 
 Almost immediately Mr. Binny pleaded pressing 
 business and went away too. He did not desire to 
 discuss the situation. It was to be as if it had not 
 taken place. But his sense of justice obliged him to 
 say in parting: "The fellow is obviously perfectly 
 respectable." He paused and added with an effort, 
 "The whole affair has been extremely foolish." 
 
 "You did what you thought right. Nobody can 
 do more than that," said Miss Felling; and so subtly 
 steadied Mr. Binny's wobbling pedestal.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 A HOLIDAY 
 
 !ARBARA was on her knees doing the doorstep, 
 when Mr. Simpson went forth to business with 
 that unfamiliar sense of hurry created by the picture 
 in his mind's eye of a clicking instrument upon which 
 he must register his punctuality or unpunctuality. The 
 morning wind blowing through the open door into the 
 house and among the heavy furniture, was like an 
 outward and visible sign of that new freedom in the 
 Avenue which permitted Barbara to do the doorstep 
 openly. The very scouring cloth which she waved at 
 her father as he passed became thus a flag of freedom, 
 celebrating the release of the Avenue from a thousand 
 mean, petty conventions. 
 
 But Mr. Simpson could not yet see it in that way. 
 As he passed his daughter, his head drooped dismally, 
 and he was filled with the odd sense of shame and 
 failure which used to attack all kind, decent, middle- 
 class men of a certain age when they were no longer 
 able to keep their women-folk in semi-idleness. It 
 remained a deep humiliation to him to see his pretty 
 Barbara doing the doorstep, for the hiring of some one 
 to perform these tasks has been for generations of 
 Mr. Simpsons the sign of a place in the world very 
 hardly won, and kept by heaven knows what thrift, 
 
 154
 
 A HOLIDAY 155 
 
 self-discipline and hard work. No one outside can 
 realise the sacrifices such middle-class families have 
 made to hide disgrace, and to keep clear of debt in 
 times- of sickness and adversity. And though ignoble 
 fears and a petty snobbishness have had their part in 
 the struggle, it is not quite the share outsiders have 
 thought; for the main thing has been the pursuit of 
 an ideal the ideal of an upright, decent way of 
 living. . . . 
 
 "I don't like to see you doing that, Barbara," Mr. 
 Simpson said, as his daughter went with him to the 
 gate. 
 
 She laughed gaily, shaking her head at him. 
 
 "You naughty, old Father!" she said. "It's all 
 wicked pride: you don't like the Avenue to see me 
 doing it." She leaned over the gate and waved her 
 scouring-cloth towards the street this time. "That 
 for the Avenue !" 
 
 Mr. Simpson lifted his head from its depressed angle 
 and smiled. He had to, at sight of so much radiant 
 independence; but all the same he felt vaguely as if 
 he were being carried away by a tide against his will, 
 while Barbara rode willingly on the crest of it. 
 
 Barbara was making bread about eleven o'clock. 
 Mrs. Simpson had gone to see the doctor and had not 
 yet returned. Elsie looked up from polishing spoons 
 and fixed a keen eye on her sister, whose face showed 
 rather worn and pale now she did not know any one 
 was watching her. 
 
 "I say, Barbie you're a pretty Polly Perkins kind 
 of beauty it won't do for you to get thin or you'll 
 get plain," said this candid younger sister.
 
 156 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "I'm not getting thin," said Barbara. 
 
 "Yes, you are : and I know what it is; you're work- 
 ing yourself to death for us all." 
 
 "Nonsense!" 
 
 "Then what is it? Surely you're not in love again. 
 You'd be a decent kid, Barbara, if you'd only leave the 
 young men alone." 
 
 "I do !" said Barbara indignantly. 
 
 "Um . . . then why did you send that box of cigs 
 to Miss Felling's wounded soldier?" 
 
 "Elsie, you are a horrid girl! You've been poking 
 about in my drawers." 
 
 "Ha! Ha!" laughed Elsie impishly. "Sold again! 
 I never knew you had done. I only guessed because I 
 heard you asked Dorothy Bellerby what were the best 
 brands?" 
 
 "Well, if you can't do a kindness to a wounded 
 soldier without " began Barbara. 
 
 "Be calm!" interrupted Elsie. "I never meant it 
 was not a noble thing to do. What did he say when 
 he wrote to thank you?" 
 
 Barbara took up the bowl, placed it on the fender, 
 and said shortly, reluctantly, with her back turned to 
 Elsie 
 
 "He never did write. I wanted no thanks, of 
 course !" 
 
 "Then why did you send the cigs? Don't tell me! 
 And you're worried because you haven't received an 
 answer from him though he may be in France by this 
 time for all you know." 
 
 "I'm sure I don't " began Barbara, when the 
 
 girls heard Mrs. Simpson at the door and ran out to 
 meet her.
 
 A HOLIDAY 157 
 
 "Well, what does the doctor say?" 
 
 "Oh, I am improving; but he was talking about 
 Elsie more than me. He says she must have a fort- 
 night at Scarcliffe before the winter sets in. So I went 
 round to Miss Felling's, and that is why I have been 
 such a long time. I thought she might know of some 
 suitable place where you two girls could go alone." 
 
 "But, Mother, it is absolutely impossible for me to 
 go," said Barbara. "You take Elsie, and I will look 
 after Father." 
 
 "No, dear," said Mrs. Simpson. "You can't do the 
 work of this house all the winter- unless you have a 
 change. You have looked quite worn and pale lately 
 with working so hard in the hot weather." 
 
 "Then even you noticed that, Mother?" said Elsie 
 eagerly. 
 
 Mrs. Simpson looked at her younger daughter with 
 whimsical affection as if a look or shadow on their 
 faces escaped her! And yet she had managed to let 
 !hem feel themselves so free. . . . 
 
 "Yes, dear," she said. Then she turned to Barbara. 
 6< I want you to go. Miss Felling knows of a soldier's 
 widow who will come for a fortnight a thoroughly 
 nice girl who lived with some friends of hers so that 
 is all right !" 
 
 "But we can't afford it; can we?" hesitated 
 Barbara. 
 
 "Oh yes, we can !" 
 
 And Mrs. Simpson smiled at her girls with a deep 
 joy in her look that they remembered it long after; but 
 they never knew what gave her smile that particular 
 radiance. It was because she had a little money of her 
 very own saved to buy a warm winter coat; and the
 
 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 joy of being able to give them it was so keen a 
 keenness of joy in pain like that felt by the mother 
 bird who pecks the feathers from her own breast to 
 shelter her young, and resembling none other on 
 earth. 
 
 Elsie glanced at her sister in secret surprise. She 
 could hardly believe that Barbara was really contem- 
 plating going to Scarcliffe. 
 
 "Mother, we can't go and leave you like this," she 
 protested. 
 
 "You'll have to," said Mrs. Simpson. "I asked Miss 
 Felling to go in at once and see Mr. Montgomery about 
 the rooms." 
 
 "Mr. Montgomery! The old chap with the wig!" 
 said Elsie. "Surely he doesn't let lodgings at 
 Scarcliffe?" 
 
 "No, but he has an elderly cousin who does. I 
 believe it was hearing about her really made me so 
 anxious for you to go. Miss Felling was talking about 
 her last night and saying how highly Mr. Montgomery 
 recommended her. I should hardly have cared for 
 two girls to go alone to ordinary rooms with so many 
 soldiers about the place." 
 
 "What old-fashioned ideas you have, Mother," 
 laughed Elsie. "But I say, it does seem rum for us 
 to owe our holiday in a way to old Wiggy, doesn't it? 
 You never know who is going to take a hand in things, 
 do you ?" 
 
 But Mrs. Simpson and Barbara were in no mood for 
 abstract speculation. 
 
 "I don't see how I can leave you, Mother," said 
 Barbara again only so half-heartedly that even Mrs. 
 Simpson felt a little secret astonishment at her read?-
 
 A HOLIDAY 159 
 
 ness to go. For no mother, however loving, can remem- 
 ber her own girlhood's emotions with ' sufficient 
 intensity to see them as they are in her daughters 
 she is bound to look at them through the wide end of 
 the telescope. So though Mrs. Simpson remained very 
 young at heart, she could not have credited the whirl 
 of thought and feeling in which Barbara packed to go 
 to cheap lodgings in Scarcliffe. 
 
 The two sisters sat facing each other in the railway 
 train Elsie with her back to the engine, because she 
 had unfortunately caught a slight cold in the change 
 from glorious dry weather to a spell of cold and wet, 
 and Barbara silent, thinking of her mother on the plat- 
 form as they said good-bye, and assailed by a pricking 
 sense of self-reproach which was not less uncomfort- 
 able for being rather indefinite. She ought to have 
 insisted more on her mother coming instead of her- 
 self. . . . No, it would have been no use. . . . Yes, 
 if she had insisted enough, perhaps it might. . . . Why 
 on earth hadn't she ? 
 
 But she knew where the answer to that question 
 waited if she would dive down to seek it only she 
 wouldn't. She was afraid of that force within herself 
 which seemed to be making her trample down all the 
 small barriers of will and conscience between her and 
 Scarcliffe, because she was sub-consciously aware that 
 it would have taken her in the same manner across 
 barriers far more important. She only knew, officially, 
 that she was "mad to get to Scarcliffe" as Elsie phrased 
 it, and would not allow, even to herself, that she was 
 fiercely bent on tracking Brooke and finding him before 
 he went to France.
 
 160 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 Then across this ferment of hidden feeling, with the 
 light play and sparkle on top of it, of her holiday mood 
 which became more defined as the train neared its 
 destination, came the sound at a railway station of a 
 band playing off a draft. Her emotions were so active 
 that the sound swept her along in a sudden burst of 
 pride and patriotism. She hung out of the carriage 
 window, waving and shouting : "Good luck !" with 
 the tears standing in her eyes. How splendid! How 
 splendid ! And then the heart-gripping thought How 
 many will come back? Then she sat down again as 
 the train moved off; and it was incredibly the over- 
 strung, excitable Elsie who had to say to her : "Bar- 
 bara, how can you go on like that? You're like a 
 maidservant out for a spree. Do keep quiet !" 
 
 "I can't sit like a log with those boys going off to 
 fight for us, if you can," said Barbara hotly. But she 
 was a little ashamed as she dried her eyes and stood up 
 to straighten her hat before the oblong piece of glass 
 in the railway carriage, though every fibre of her 
 seemed to be aflame and vibrating with patriotic 
 fervour, and she felt fiercely that, whatever Elsie said, 
 she was ready that minute to die for England. Then 
 she suddenly thrust her face nearer to the glass and 
 her bright eyes shot out beams of apprehension 
 there was a pimple on her chin! Instinct jumped, 
 quivering, to the knowledge that this might hinder 
 her in the quest of which she declined to be conscious. 
 The pimple was a nearer and more vital thing at that 
 moment than all the vague glory of the moment before, 
 when she had waved the soldiers farewell. 
 
 She sat down again, saying anxiously: "Elsie, I 
 have an awful spot coming on my chin."
 
 A HOLIDAY 161 
 
 "Badness coming out," said Elsie carelessly. 
 "Goodness me, Barbara, I do wish you'd sit still for 
 a minute. You're like a cat on hot cinders. I never 
 knew you so fidgety before. It's generally me that 
 gets excited while you keep as calm as a cucumber." 
 
 "I suppose I want a holiday," murmured Barbara, 
 and she forced herself to sit still for the remainder of 
 the journey. 
 
 They were settled in their lodgings, and Elsie sat 
 by the fire which the landlady had lighted, for she, 
 too, was suffering from a cold owing to the change of 
 weather. 
 
 "Sticks bust be damp," Mrs. Clarke remarked fret- 
 fully, poking a piece of paper between the bars. "I 
 can't understand eddybody coming to Scarcliffe that 
 could go on to the South Coast; but my cousin, Mr. 
 Montgomery, lets me have this house rent free, so I 
 stay here." 
 
 "Atchee !" sneezed Elsie. "There, I'm getting worse 
 you see. I might just as well have gone out with 
 Barbara, after all." 
 
 "You were too tired," said Mrs. Clarke unanswer- 
 ably. 
 
 There followed a silence. Mrs. Clarke sank herself 
 in a newspaper and Elsie read a book which she had 
 brought from the Flodmouth Free Library. At last 
 Mrs. Clarke looked up at the clock. 
 
 "It's half-past nine; time your sister was in, with 
 all these soldiers about. She said she was just going 
 to run out for half an hour. Have you any friends 
 stopping in the place?" 
 
 "No," said Elsie : then she remembered Brooke, who
 
 162 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 had not been mentioned at all when the plans were 
 being made for coming to Scarcliffe, but of whom Mrs. 
 Simpson had said on the railway platform casually: 
 "Perhaps you will see little Kitchener's friend." And 
 Barbara had replied with equal carelessness: "Oh, 
 I daresay he has gone off to France by this time." 
 Now Elsie said to Mrs. Clarke, "Why, yes, we do 
 know one soldier who was stationed here; but I don't 
 expect he is here still." 
 
 "Officer, of course?" said Mrs. Clarke. 
 
 "No. Private," said Elsie. 
 
 The conversation again lapsed. Mrs. Clarke was a 
 fat woman with a fine white skin that had gone a little 
 grey to match her hair, protruding false teeth and a 
 fluffy, grey shawl; her remarkable resemblance to a 
 tame rabbit was increased in some subtle way by the 
 cold in her head. At ten o'clock, the grating, throaty 
 chime of the clock whirred through the room. She 
 glared puffily at the white dial and then at Elsie. 
 
 "Not in yet?" 
 
 "It is easy to mistake the time when you are out 
 walking," said Elsie. "Do you want to go to bed? 
 I can easily sit up for my sister." 
 
 "Certainly not. I was asked to look after you like 
 young relatives of my own, and I shall do so as far as 
 possible. Of course no one has any control over the 
 girls of the present day." She paused and added, for 
 she was deeply curious like so many stupid people: 
 "Was there anything between your sister and this 
 young man ?" 
 
 "Which young man ?" said Elsie flippantly. "She's 
 had lots. Quite a one for the boys, is our Barbara." 
 
 Having given this misleading piece of information
 
 A HOLIDAY 163 
 
 Elsie continued her book. Mrs. Clarke meditated 
 muzzily, sniffing eucalyptus, then she pronounced the 
 nett result of her reflections : "I suppose you under- 
 stood that I do not receive young men visitors at this 
 house?" She was not going to have her residence 
 turned into a meeting-place for a flighty girl and her 
 admirers, that she did know : and she blinked heavily 
 at Elsie. 
 
 "I'm sure we don't want you to," said Elsie light- 
 heartedly. "Oh, here's Barbara at last!" 
 
 They turned expectantly towards the door, but when 
 it was flung hastily back Barbara paused for a moment 
 blinking stupidly, blinded by the full light after the 
 darkness outside, and choked by the heat and eucalyp- 
 tus fumes on coming in from the cool sea air. 
 
 "Well, this is a nice time of night," said Elsie. 
 "Mrs. Clarke began to think you had eloped with some 
 soldier or other." 
 
 "Why, what time is it?" said Barbara. 
 
 "Long after ten," pronounced Mrs. Clarke, her 
 speech not blunted but rather edged by a confusion of 
 b's and p's. 
 
 "After ten ! Oh, it can't be," said Barbara. 
 
 "You must have been spending your time very 
 pleasantly. Did you find your soldier friend?" said 
 Mrs. Clarke. 
 
 To Elsie's surprise Barbara flushed crimson. 
 
 "I came across a man we know, when I was 
 listening to the band. I went for a little walk on the 
 cliff. The moon came out. I had no idea it was 
 after nine." 
 
 "Well, with some girls I should have expected it," 
 said Mrs. Clarke, "but my cousin told me you were
 
 164 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 exactly the opposite of that." She paused, filling a 
 cup with cocoa. "I have kept this hot for you. Of 
 course I have no responsibility. But as I have just 
 told your sister, I do not expect to see young men 
 visitors at this house. I am a very quiet person, and 
 I can't be bothered with them. In addition to which 
 my permanent lodger, Mrs. Scrope, would be very 
 much upset. She dislikes the smell of tobacco." 
 
 "She'll soon have to go to another world if she 
 wants to get out of that smell," said Elsie. "Perhaps 
 she is very old?" 
 
 "Hush, Elsie!" said Barbara, then she added to 
 Mrs. Clarke: "I'm very sorry to have made you 
 uneasy. I had no idea it was so late." 
 
 "Well," said Mrs. Clarke, dabbing her nose, "I 
 suppose we have all been young once." 
 
 But it seemed incredible to the two girls that this 
 rabbity bundle of female humanity could ever have 
 walked with a young man in the moonlight. 
 
 "Good-night, Mrs. Clarke," said Barbara. Her 
 voice sounded very clear and her eyes seemed filled 
 with the fresh darkness of the summer night, her face 
 bloomed like a cool flower in that hot, little room. 
 
 "Good-night, Miss Simpson," said Mrs. Clarke. 
 "And do remember the thinness of the walls, please. 
 Mrs. Scrope once distinctly heard a lady in the room 
 where you are sleeping ask her husband how his corns 
 were." 
 
 "Well, we haven't any corns, at any rate," said 
 Elsie. 
 
 "Of course we will be careful, Mrs. Clarke," said 
 Barbara. 
 
 Then the two girls ran upstairs hand in hand,
 
 A HOLIDAY 165 
 
 subduing their laughter until the bedroom door was 
 shut. 
 
 "Oh, Barbara!" 
 
 "Oh, Elsie! Do be quiet! Think of the tobacco- 
 hating lady next door." 
 
 Upon which they laughed again, pressing handker- 
 chiefs upon their lips and rejoicing in the comicality of 
 something not comical at all, after that fashion of 
 youth which age scorns because it only sees the silly 
 seeming outside, and has forgotten the exquisite sense 
 of fun and jollity that used to lie beneath. 
 
 "I say, what a lark your coming across Brooke!" 
 said Elsie. "I suppose he is in khaki now. Does he 
 look very different?" 
 
 Like a picture, only more vivid than any picture, the 
 lean, alert figure of Brooke with his dark eyes shining 
 out of his lined face as he came towards her in the 
 bright moonlight appeared once more before Barbara. 
 But the sense of achievement and satisfaction of 
 finding at last what every fibre of her body was tensely 
 waiting for that could never come back again, because 
 memory can only hold the echo of emotion. 
 
 "No," she said casually, "he looks much the same." 
 
 "Well, I shall always remember him best in that 
 red, white and blue affair ; it seemed to suit him," said 
 Elsie. "When is he going out to France ?" 
 
 "In about a week, he expects." 
 
 "Then we were only just in time to find him here ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 That was all Barbara said about it, and she imme- 
 diately began to make fun of the lodgings again : but 
 at Elsie's words a sudden shock of fear, such as comes 
 at the mention of a vital danger only just surmounted,
 
 i66 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 made her tremble a little. He had so very nearly gone 
 out of her life before she could reach him. And yet 
 she did not realise what she thought, because thought 
 was in abeyance and feeling had usurped its place. 
 She only knew that she was looking forward to her 
 stay here with intense pleasure. She was filled with 
 an acute sense of the dancing waves and the sharpness 
 of the sweet air and the intensified beauty of every- 
 thing round her. It was not first a bird's glow of new 
 plumage at the approach of love, but the human miracle 
 of a whole world putting on glory in the eyes of a lover. 
 
 When the throaty clock to which it did seem 
 strange the particular permanent lodger had not taken 
 exception chimed the hour of twelve through the 
 house, everyone save Barbara was fast asleep. 
 
 She lay awake with the window a little open, and 
 the waves sounded very plainly. Swi-sh! Swi-sh! 
 Swi-sh! went on the shingly beach outside. The 
 green curtains had been drawn back and a twilight of 
 the moon came through the linen blinds: it was an 
 exquisite light, just made for waking dreams. And yet 
 Barbara was not dreaming. She was in that strange, 
 happy state of suspended thought which comes before 
 dreams begin.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 SEA-WIND 
 
 THE little sitting-room without a sea-view in which 
 the girls were cheaply accommodated, rather as 
 a favour to Mr. Montgomery than as a means of profit, 
 was this afternoon warmer and more scented by 
 eucalyptus than ever, for Elsie had developed a cold 
 to match Mrs. Clarke's, and they sat sniffing in turns 
 on either side of a small fire. Barbara stood by the 
 table with a book under her arm. 
 
 "Anything else I can do for you? Poor old girl, 
 it is hard lines!" And Barbara said it all the more 
 emphatically because she was really glad that Elsie 
 had a cold. She did not acknowledge this, of course, 
 but she had a half-remorseful consciousness of it. 
 First, Mrs. Simpson, then Elsie . . . but she would 
 have pushed aside Mr. Simpson too had he stood in 
 the way. For the time being there was only one clear 
 purpose in her life; she had to go out alone at those 
 hours when she could see Brooke. She must walk with 
 him and talk with him and meet every now and then 
 those ardent eyes that quickened her into such a vibrat- 
 ing sense of being gloriously alive. But she still told 
 herself and half believed that the change to sea air 
 and sunshine had caused her joyful exhilaration, 
 though some depth within her knew it would have been 
 
 167
 
 168 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 just the same in one of those slums, smelling of fish 
 and beer and tar, which linger still in old Flodmouth. 
 For it was indeed a wind of the spirit that had blown 
 across her as she went along the sands that evening by 
 Brooke's side at the edge of the little waves; though 
 she also thrilled with the physical passion which is the 
 other half of true love. 
 
 So now she was sorry for Elsie on the surface as 
 she stood there with the library book in her hand; 
 and she was really like a homing pigeon straining to 
 be released. 
 
 "Then there's nothing else?" she said, making her- 
 self pause another minute. "You wouldn't care for 
 me to stay in too, Elsie?" 
 
 "Don't be an idiot !" said Elsie. "You might bring 
 me a few peppermints, if you liked; they're comfort- 
 ing." And she added, drawing a shawl closer round 
 her : "Oh, dear, this is a holiday !" 
 
 "Poor old Elsie!" repeated Barbara, fidgeting with 
 the door handle. "Anything for you, Mrs. Clarke?" 
 
 "Thank you, I'm nearly run out of eucalyptus," 
 said Mrs. Clarke. "And if you could see a bit of fresh 
 fish anywhere. Fish would be nice and light for 
 supper." 
 
 "I'll do my best," said Barbara. "Good-bye !" 
 
 She breathed deeply as she shut the door like a 
 person thankful to escape, then hurried down the 
 passage and out into the street lest she should be called 
 back for further commissions. 
 
 Mrs. Clarke looked across at Elsie, her eyes round 
 and watery, her nose-end pink, her resemblance to a 
 tame rabbit with an inquisitive mind more pronounced 
 than ever.
 
 SEA-WIND 169 
 
 "Off after that young man again!'* she said, with 
 a sort of placid vindictiveness. 
 
 "Don't talk nonsense," said Elsie abruptly. "Bar- 
 bara is not like that." And she was all the more sharp 
 because the idea had occurred to herself. 
 
 "They're all like that when they come to Scar- 
 cliffe," said Mrs. Clarke. "Soldiers and sands mixed, 
 seem to go to their heads. I don't know why it is so, 
 but it is," and she sniffed again. 
 
 "You're quite mistaken," said Elsie, and she sniffed 
 also before returning to her book, so there was a certain 
 bond between them which made the situation support- 
 able, and Mrs. Clarke was very kind in the way of 
 creature comforts that afternoon. 
 
 Barbara meanwhile walked briskly along the sea- 
 front to the main street where the shops were situated, 
 and was fortunate enough to secure the desired book 
 and the peppermints. Carrying these in a bag, she 
 returned at once to the cliff edge and ran down the 
 steps which led to the beach. Then she began to walk 
 slowly, loitering by the edge of the incoming tide, 
 picking up bits of seaweed and letting them fall, seek- 
 ing flat stones with which to make ducks and drakes 
 on the water. At last she saw an erect, lean figure in 
 khaki coming towards her, and even at that distance, 
 and in spite of the heavy sand which caused his step 
 to be laboured instead of briskly alert, she knew it 
 was Brooke. Her whole being leapt to the recognition 
 before she had time to think: "That is he!" But 
 she stood quite still facing the waves until he came up 
 behind her. Then she turned round. 
 
 "Could you see me a long way off ?" she asked. 
 
 "Yes, from the end of the Parade. You stood so
 
 17Q THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 still I thought you'd turned into a clump of sea-lavender 
 before my very eyes." 
 
 "Oh! Why?" She glanced at him, looking side- 
 ways and half smiling, not thinking at all what she said. 
 
 "Because nymphs always did turn into something 
 like that when they were pursued. It was the proper 
 thing for a nymph to do, and I knew you'd try to do 
 the proper thing." 
 
 She glanced at him doubtfully. 
 
 "Don't you?" 
 
 "Don't I what?" he asked, smiling. 
 
 "Why, want to do the proper thing." 
 
 "Depends." 
 
 "What on?" she said, moving a pebble with her 
 foot. 
 
 "How much I want to do the other thing.*' 
 
 They laughed together, the utter futility of their 
 talk in some queer way making it all the more delight- 
 ful to them perhaps because it thus interfered less 
 with unspoken conversation they were holding, and 
 which was so exquisitely enjoyable. Their laughter 
 had a pleasant sound there young laughter on the 
 sea's edge and her girl's rippling tone was the comple- 
 ment of his deeper one. 
 
 "Well, you broke your rule when you came to that 
 Cinema Show with me," he said. "I've often won- 
 dered you being you what made you ?" 
 
 "I don't know. You looked Iqnely." She paused 
 and glanced up at him with her sweet face grave. "I 
 think since Jim went I somehow feel as if all soldiers 
 were brothers of mine too." 
 
 He drew nearer, touching her arm. 
 
 "Dear little girl ... I believe that is the explana-
 
 SEA-WIND 171 
 
 tion. There never was anybody like you, Barbara." 
 He paused. "But I don't feel like a brother, you 
 know." 
 
 For a moment the briefest second of time 
 Barbara thought of that other girl whom he had loved 
 and who had died out there in Canada. He must have 
 said there was no girl like her, once, of course. Then 
 the moment passed. She was glad he had lived all 
 his years and not hidden in safety, afraid of life. But 
 for that brief space . . . 
 
 And as if in consequence of it, he said gravely 
 
 "I'd been very lonely before I met you. A man 
 is lonelier, I believe, when he has been married. She 
 was so splendid my poor little wife; but I ought 
 never to have taken her out there. She was meant 
 for a sheltered life in a country parsonage in England. 
 She could have stood that all right; but it was the 
 unsheltered bigness of everything that broke her heart. 
 She hated the prairie and the wind blowing across it. 
 She hated everything in Alberta. And now I have a 
 piece of land on the other side of the Rockies, in the 
 fruit-growing country where the climate is fine. The 
 trees were just coming to their best when I left, and I 
 had to put a man in charge. But I'm afraid she might 
 not have cared much for that either. She wanted 
 green lanes and home. At the last she used to cry 
 when she heard the wind." 
 
 As Barbara listened she felt a pang at her heart. 
 It was like hearing about a little friend for whom 
 life had been too hard, and the shadow of jealousy 
 lifted and passed away. But she could not find any- 
 thing to say, and they walked on a few steps in 
 silence.
 
 172 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "I never talk about that time." He broke the silence 
 with an effort. "Only I felt I should like to tell you. 
 I don't suppose I shall mention it again." 
 
 Her quick mind leapt responsive ; she knew perfectly 
 well that he was closing a door on memories that a 
 decent man keeps sacred. 
 
 "No ... of course. . . ." She kept her eyes fixed 
 on the sea. 
 
 But he was sure of her understanding because their 
 spirits had just then spoken most intimately together 
 in the way that nearly all conversations of a personal 
 nature that matter deeply are spoken, when such words 
 as do come are rather by way of punctuation, showing 
 pauses and the end. 
 
 After a while they noticed the flowing tide getting 
 near to the cliffs, and saw they must return unless they 
 wished to spend several hours between sand and sky 
 on a precarious edge of rock. In speaking of this, the 
 current of their thoughts changed, and as they walked 
 back to the Parade, talking easily about anything that 
 came into their minds, Barbara experienced that most 
 delightful sense of ease and freedom which a girl often 
 knows just before her lover declares himself. She is 
 so certain everything she says must be charming and 
 right because she says it, and yet she has not been 
 told so, even by her own heart. This time is so brief 
 that many forget it afterwards in thinking of love 
 but it has the tender, evanescent loveliness of a flower 
 opening and not yet open, of a butterfly just fluttering 
 out to meet the sunshine. . . . 
 
 So they walked together and told each other all 
 sorts of things with no more effort than the waves 
 rippling on the sand. The strange influence which
 
 SEA-WIND 173 
 
 makes people tell in that hour what they have kept to 
 themselves all their lives was not less powerful in 
 Brooke through having experienced it before, because 
 an eternal newness in love is part of the economy of 
 nature. And Barbara confided to him her inmost 
 thoughts and hopes and affairs with the abandon which 
 those know best who have always beneath a surface 
 frankness been rather reserved ; the shallow trickling 
 confidences of the habitually expansive are not to be 
 compared with this stream. 
 
 At the end of the afternoon Barbara parted from 
 her undeclared lover in a glow of deepest happiness. 
 She felt so much nearer in spirit to another human 
 being than she had ever thought possible. They were 
 both so wrought on by this afternoon hour that they 
 believed themselves on the verge of escaping forever 
 from the loneliness of spirit which is human life. 
 
 "You'll come out again after supper?" he said. 
 
 "Oh, I can't! Poor Elsie!" 
 
 "Then may I come in ?" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "So sorry. Mrs. Clarke's permanent lodger seems 
 to object to gentlemen callers. Isn't it ridiculous?" 
 
 "Then you'll come to-morrow afternoon?" he said. 
 "To-morrow's Sunday. After to-morrow I can only 
 be certain of an hour or two in the evening and not 
 always that. Won't you come, Barbara ?" 
 
 It was the first time he had called her Barbara. 
 
 "I will if I can. I'll try. I don't know." She 
 stood poised, ready to go, the lovely colour creeping 
 over her face. 
 
 "I shall wait on that seat at the end of the Parade 
 all the afternoon,"
 
 174 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "Oh, don't!" 
 
 He looked at her very directly, smiling, and yet with 
 something behind the smile which she dared not 
 disregard. 
 
 "I won't if you really would rather not." 
 
 "Oh! You know." 
 
 She turned and ran up the steps into the tall house 
 fronting the Parade. 
 
 Elsie looked round, blinking her eyes and holding 
 her book with one finger inside, after the fashion of 
 the born bookworm. 
 
 "Well, you have been a long time thought you were 
 going to be late for supper." 
 
 "Got the fish?" said Mrs. Clarke, bustling into the 
 room. 
 
 "Got everything!" laughed Barbara. And, indeed, 
 she felt she had; the world was hers and the fulness 
 of it. 
 
 The Sunday midday dinner was over and Mrs. 
 Clarke rested from her weekly row with the permanent 
 lodger, who presented the usual combination of perma- 
 nence and less endearing characteristics. Elsie gazed 
 wistfully at the little garden behind the house and 
 thought how beautiful the sunshine must be on the sea. 
 
 "It seems to have turned warmer since yesterday," 
 she said. "Don't you think I might go out for a 
 walk?" 
 
 "Not after staying indoors all the morning," said 
 Barbara quickly. 
 
 "But it is so warm now," pleaded Elsie. 
 
 Mrs. Clarke looked up.
 
 SEA-WIND 175: 
 
 "Don't be so foolish! You might get pneumonia, 
 and a nice thing that would be in war-time with all the 
 doctors so busy." 
 
 "I want to go," said Elsie. "What do you really 
 think, Barbara ?" 
 
 Barbara did not speak. She could not, to be plain, 
 because of that ridiculous throbbing at her heart. 
 
 Elsie sighed and sat down again. 
 
 "Oh, well! I don't want to do anything mad, of 
 course." She glanced aside at Barbara, who still stood 
 by the window. "You going?" 
 
 "I think I shall take a turn." 
 
 "Do. No use our both stopping indoors," urged 
 Elsie generously; and Barbara felt almost impelled to 
 offered her sister company almost but not quite, for 
 fear the offer should be accepted. 
 
 "Good-bye, old girl, I'm so sorry," she said; and 
 she went out, ashamed that she was not sorry. 
 
 But before she reached the end of the row of houses 
 all regrets had vanished, and she was only glad that 
 any chance on earth even the spoiling of poor Elsie's 
 holiday had given her this glorious afternoon alone 
 with Brooke. For the time being she was utterly 
 selfish, like many another kind-hearted girl in love, 
 at whom people look astonished, unable to understand 
 the change. 
 
 As Barbara crossed the road she saw Brooke sitting 
 on a seat in the distance, in the attitude of alert repose 
 which belongs only to strength of mind and muscle; 
 but before she reached the entrance to the Parade 
 he had risen and hastened forward to meet her. They 
 walked fast and spoke rather disjointedly until the 
 long stretch of grey- white promenade between the sea
 
 176 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 and the tall houses merged into a rough path on the 
 top of the cliff, then they slackened their pace and 
 began to look at each other between the trivial sen- 
 tences, taking up, where they had left off, the wonder- 
 ful unspoken conversation of yesterday. 
 
 At last they were a mile beyond the town. The 
 band, tootling under the glass dome, could no longer 
 be heard at all. A couple of soldiers passed them, 
 glanced with a wink at Brooke, and went on. Faintly 
 on the light breeze came a whistling chorus: "Who's 
 your lady friend?" But it just meant a jolly sense of 
 comradeship on that glorious summer Sunday after- 
 noon. He'd got a pretty girl they only wished gaily 
 that they were in the same boat but he was one of 
 themselves and had a right to love and beauty. 
 
 That was what the whistling conveyed, and it merged 
 happily enough with the birds' singing through the 
 boom of the sea. 
 
 "Shall we take this field-path?" said Brooke. 
 
 "Yes, I like walking by the edge of the corn," said 
 Barbara. 
 
 She wore a white dress crisply washed and a plain 
 straw hat with a red ribbon in it: there were also red 
 poppies among the corn which awaited the late harvest 
 of the North. The sky above was of that lovely blue 
 which is quite different from the colour of skies that 
 are always blue more delicate, with no more hard 
 suspicion of permanence than the colour of a wild 
 flower and Barbara suited it all as if she had been 
 painted there by a master hand. 
 
 "I say shall we sit down a bit?" said Brooke 
 suddenly. 
 
 "All right, but I'm not tired."
 
 SEA-WIND 177 
 
 She sat down on a bank under the hedge with the 
 cornfield spreading out in front of her and the sky 
 above. He stood for a moment longer until she was 
 settled. While memory lasted he was to keep the 
 memory of her as she sat there the blue and white 
 and gold with splashes of scarlet among the corn and 
 above her shining eyes. It was a glory of pure colour 
 matching in its exquisite clearness something in her 
 frank forehead and clear-cut, tender lips. 
 
 "Barbara," he said, kneeling down beside her, "how 
 am I going to leave you?" 
 
 She shook her head, her eyes unconsciously seeking, 
 fixed on his. 
 
 He took her hand. 
 
 "It seems so queer, Barbara." (He could not speak 
 her name too often, lingering over each syllable.) 
 "It seems so queer that you could be in the world and I 
 not know it." 
 
 Her fingers lay in his, quite still; she pretended not 
 to see they were there. 
 
 "Yes." Then somehow she suddenly thought of 
 Frank Garret, and took her hand away. 
 
 He continued gravely, broodingly: "How strange 
 things are : me, going about the world and you in 
 that narrow, sheltered street all the time. . . ." 
 
 They wondered at life together old life wearing a 
 mysterious new mask. He told her of his fruit orchards 
 in spring, which he hoped to go back to after the war, 
 and she could almost smell the blossom through the 
 warm sea-wind that came over the sunlit corn. But 
 their talk, though so engrossing, really meant nothing 
 to either in itself just now; it was like the overture 
 that is only leading up and up to something beyond
 
 178 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 the ears of their souls were all the time listening for a 
 wonder to come. And thus the beautiful afternoon 
 hours went by, until it began to grow late, when 
 Barbara drew forth the old fashioned watch on a long 
 gold chain which Mrs. Simpson had lent her because 
 her own was broken. Brooke touched the watch too, 
 bending over to see it more clearly because they could 
 not believe the hands had reached a quarter to five. 
 And as he touched it, he felt the warmness which the 
 gold had gathered from lying under her blouse, and 
 suddenly pressed the watch to his lips. It was still 
 held by the slender chain, and she gazed at him over 
 it with lips parted and eyes dark and wide like a 
 pictured Madonna too rapt to be afraid. There was, 
 indeed, something very solemn and lovely in her look 
 at that moment. Then the chain broke. 
 
 "Oh! Mother's chain!" she cried, startled. "Please 
 give it me." 
 
 She held out her hand and he looked at her putting 
 the watch back into her blouse. They were both 
 trembling. 
 
 "I must go now," she said. 
 
 "No." He forced the word out rather than spoke 
 it "Sit where you are." 
 
 "But I must " 
 
 He flung his arm round her and held her. 
 
 "Barbara ! Can't you see I'm mad for love of you ? 
 I didn't mean to tell you. I've been keeping it in. 
 But I can't I can't 
 
 She let him press his head against her soft shoulder 
 and hide his face there. A long minute passed. Then 
 he heard her murmur : "Poor boy ! Poor boy !" 
 
 She said it in the voice whieh she had only learned
 
 SEA-WIND 179 
 
 when she felt his weight upon her just as a mother 
 learns a new voice when her first baby comes the 
 crooning notes that had always come when she wanted 
 to be kind were there, but grown deeper and far more 
 sweet. 
 
 "I do love you so, Barbara. I couldn't leave you 
 without telling you." 
 
 "Of course you couldn't." 
 
 He sat up and looked at her. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 She smiled deep into his burning eyes. 
 
 "I shouldn't have let you." 
 
 "Oh, my dear! My dear!" And they clung to- 
 gether again while the sea boomed and the birds sang 
 and the salt wind came across the corn. Then she 
 said 
 
 "I must go now. Elsie and Mrs. Clarke will have 
 had tea long since. They will be wondering what has 
 happened ?" 
 
 "What does that matter? This is our last after- 
 noon together. We may never " 
 
 He stopped short, but her heart filled in the gap. 
 They might never be together in the sunshine any 
 more. 
 
 "Oh, Julian, I feel as if it would kill me to let you 
 go," she cried. "How am I to live through the time 
 until you come home again ?" 
 
 He took her in his arms again, very gently this time. 
 "Poor little girl," he said. "That's all my love is 
 bringing you. I ought to have left you alone." 
 
 "No ! No !" she said. "I couldn't have borne that. 
 
 I " She paused and looked him in the face with 
 
 her colour deepening painfully. "You must never
 
 i8o THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 blame yourself. Always, always remember that! I 
 I came to Scarcliffe because because I wanted you !" 
 
 "How sweet to tell me," he whispered, holding 
 her close. And it was a moment when young passion 
 was converted by a mixture of the soul's love into 
 something wonderfully beautiful. All the rose and 
 gold and pearl of that most magic draught shone 
 through the crystal bowl they held up between them. 
 
 "You'll never let this spoil your life not if anything 
 happens to me?" he said. 
 
 "No, Julian, I won't. I won't!" she said, half 
 sobbing. It was the cry of brave weakness taking on 
 strength through love, but he knew that she spoke true 
 as she looked at him, her sweet mouth a little twisted 
 by keeping back her tears. 
 
 So she, too, gained a picture of her lover which was 
 to stay with her always his hair against the mellow 
 afternoon, touched golden where it was ruffled by 
 leaning on her shoulder; his dark eyes blazing with 
 passionate adoration as he looked down at her. She 
 came into his arms again of her own accord and closed 
 her eyes, leaning her cheek against his coat. The 
 rough feel of it and the smoke odour were to remain 
 with her while she remembered anything. 
 
 "My own girl: I can't leave you," he murmured, 
 his love-cry no less monotonous than that of all other 
 living creatures. "Barbara, I'm going to buy our 
 wedding-ring before I go. I must put it on and see 
 how it looks." 
 
 "Dearest, I'll wear it on a ribbon round my neck 
 and kiss it every night." 
 
 Thus they came upon that divine futility of lovers 
 which cannot bear repeating, but is a part of love like
 
 SEA-WIND 181 
 
 all the rest As he measured her finger and put the 
 knotted string in his pocket, she felt that a new thing 
 had been done in the world; and at last they started 
 to walk back along the cliff top in the beginning of the 
 sunset. 
 
 "I must write to your Father," he said. 
 
 She looked at him, suddenly grave and pale. This 
 was no lovers' fairy tale then: something hard and 
 real had come into it already. 
 
 "I think I had better tell Mother myself first. She 
 is in bad health, and I think a letter like that would 
 upset her." 
 
 "You don't mean you want to keep it a secret?" he 
 said sharply. "I hate that sort of thing." 
 
 "Oh!" she paused. "Well, I do too. I'll tell them 
 the minute I get back." 
 
 "Why not write?" 
 
 She hesitated, looking down. 
 
 "They they are rather foolish about me. And 
 they are a little prejudiced, in a way, because your 
 brother . . . though father does think you behaved 
 so splendidly about little Kitchener ... I think it 
 would come better by word of mouth." 
 
 "I don't like going without seeing Mr. Simpson," 
 said Brooke. 
 
 "Well, he can't get over. And you can't get leave 
 to go to Flodmouth. Besides " she hesitated again 
 and told the truth "we have only three more days, 
 Julian. Don't let us spoil them by all sorts of bothers. 
 You can come to see Father the very first time you 
 are home from France." 
 
 "You mean you think your parents will make 
 difficulties?"
 
 182 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 She turned round and suddenly clung to him. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know ! I don't know ! We can't spoil 
 our last bit of time together." 
 
 What she left unspoken the tragic, unanswerable 
 "It may be all we ever have" influenced him against 
 his 'better judgment, just as her sudden, spontaneous 
 embrace disturbed his senses : he ceased to see clear. 
 
 "Will you do as I say, Julian?" she urged. "Will 
 you? Will you?" 
 
 He bent and kissed her upturned face. 
 
 "I'll do anything on earth you want, dearest. But 
 you'll promise me to tell them directly I am gone?" 
 he added quickly. 
 
 "I promise," said Barbara. 
 
 So he took her hand and they began to walk along 
 the cliff top towards home. The evening star came out 
 through the sunset. They were happy. 
 
 As they halted at the end of the Parade, they looked 
 up into a clear sky. 
 
 "Another fine day to-morrow. If we could only 
 spend one whole day together, Barbara !" 
 
 "Anyway, there'll be the evenings. Elsie will not 
 be well enough for two or three days to go out after 
 supper." 
 
 "They may try to keep you in," he said. 
 
 "No, I'll manage it somehow." 
 
 "Don't they suspect anything?" 
 
 "Oh, I dare say Elsie does; she is as sharp as a 
 needle. But I shall not say anything. I want to tell 
 Mother first." 
 
 "Good-night." 
 
 "Good-night." 
 
 They said it, and as they turned back to say it
 
 SEA-WIND 183 
 
 again, he saw the door of a little tea-shop open and 
 shut. 
 
 "Look! There's a tea-place open!" he exclaimed 
 with joyful haste, like one seeing a reprieve. "Your 
 people will have finished tea. Won't you come?" 
 
 She hesitated, glancing away from him. 
 
 "I'm awfully late. They'll wonder." Then she 
 looked at him. "Why, you'll want something your- 
 self, of course." And she began to walk towards the 
 shop, saying defiantly: "Mrs. Clarke should have let 
 me bring friends home with me. But she took us at 
 a very low rate. Anyway, it's her fault." 
 
 They found a table in a corner of the half-empty 
 place, with a waitress who muttered something about 
 supplying "soldiers only" on Sundays. But in the end 
 they were allowed to take their little meal together, 
 with cake like sawdust and very indifferent tea. They 
 did not notice this, however, because they were really 
 partaking of a love-feast whose sacredness made the 
 actual food no matter. It was the last meal they were 
 to share before the parting, and beneath their merry 
 words and their looks towards each other, their hearts 
 performed silent acts of worship of which they 
 remained unconscious. They only knew as they came 
 out into the star-light, brushing off the crumbs, that 
 they had just done something very beautiful and 
 solemn. 
 
 For the old, old instincts of the hearth rise up again 
 whenever a man and girl who love each other truly 
 take their first meal together as declared lovers, even 
 though it be in a fly-haunted tea-shop.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 PARTING 
 
 THE last evening on which Brooke could be sure 
 of meeting Barbara had come. His draft was 
 to leave forty-eight hours later for the Front, and he 
 would probably be detained in camp the following 
 night. Barbara stood in the sitting-room nervously 
 fidgeting with some wool that she was winding for 
 Mrs. Clarke over the backs of two chairs. The blinds 
 were down and the gas was already lighted. At last 
 she said carelessly 
 
 "Now I think I'll go out for a turn. You'll be all 
 right, Elsie?" 
 
 "Right as I've been every night. But my cold is 
 much better. I could quite well go out to-night." 
 
 Barbara looked fixedly at her wool, but her fingers 
 shook so that she let go the ball. It was curious how 
 this drama of her love working out against a wide 
 background of sea and sky should yet be controlled 
 at every crisis by Elsie's cold in the head. 
 
 "What do you think, Mrs. Clarke?" pursued Elsie. 
 
 The grey rabbit dilated her pink nostrils, consid- 
 ering, and it was the voice of fate Barbara waited for, 
 because she knew herself unable to either tell Elsie 
 openly to stay at home or to explain how matters 
 stood. She endured the strange moment common to 
 most lives when a sensible human being with ordinary 
 
 184
 
 PARTING 185 
 
 strength of will is like a trembling bird fascinated by a 
 snake ; physically able to escape from the embarrassing 
 circumstance, yet, like the bird, incapable of doing it. 
 
 "I'm sure I shall be all right if I put a scarf on," 
 said Elsie going towards the door. 
 
 Barbara opened her lips, closed them again and 
 tangled the wool: then she spoke with her face bent 
 over it 
 
 "You sneezed at supper." 
 
 "Ah! I'd forgotten the sneeze," said Mrs. Clarke. 
 "I really think, Elsie, I should stay in for one more 
 night." 
 
 "Very well," said Elsie, glancing sideways at her 
 sister. "I suppose I had better do as Mrs. Clarke 
 thinks best, then?" 
 
 Barbara steadied herself against the back of the 
 chair. The revulsion of feeling was perfectly ridicu- 
 lous, but it almost caused her to feel faint. 
 
 "That's a good girl, Elsie. I'll just go for an hour," 
 she said, putting the wool together. 
 
 "Barbara!" cried Elsie sharply. "You are tangling 
 that wool so that nobody will ever be able to wind it." 
 
 Mrs. Clarke looked round over her grey-shawled 
 shoulder. 
 
 "I hope you have not given your sister your cold, 
 Elsie," she said. "Miss Simpson looks very pale to- 
 night and her eyes are over bright. I think she would 
 be best indoors, too." She paused. "You stay quietly 
 indoors too, Miss Simpson." 
 
 "No!" Barbara jerked out the word in a stress of 
 nervous irritation that was becoming almost uncon- 
 trollable; but at the door she forced herself to turn 
 and smile.
 
 186 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "Good-night, Elsie. It is hard lines on you." And 
 there was something in that wavering smile which 
 vaguely touched Elsie, though she only called out 
 
 "Crocodile!" 
 
 "Hush! Hush! Nice name to call your sister," said 
 Mrs. Clarke, who was nothing if not literal. 
 
 "Barbara doesn't mind. Barbara knows I could 
 say something she'd dislike a lot worse than that if I 
 liked," said Elsie. 
 
 The door closed and Mrs. Clarke put her knitting 
 down to look across at Elsie, for curiosity about the 
 meanest trifles had power to galvanise her at once into 
 a resemblance of animation : "Do you think she's gone 
 to meet any one in particular?" 
 
 "Don't know, I'm sure." 
 
 "I expect it's that Brooke you spoke about. Some- 
 body said a draft was going off to-morrow night. Do 
 you think he is going with it ?" pursued Mrs. Clarke. 
 
 "I never think hurts my head," said Elsie smooth- 
 
 iy. 
 
 Mrs. Clarke stared at her let the words slowly sink 
 into her comprehension and reddened. 
 
 "I'm sure I had no wish to intrude. But surely a 
 
 friendly interest in young ladies under my charge " 
 
 She sniffed and rose. 
 
 "Well, I was rude," said Elsie. "But it would 
 make any one rude stopping in night after night, when 
 you have only one fortnight in the whole year, 
 wouldn't it, Mrs. Clarke?" 
 
 And her face looked so wistful and peaked in the 
 full light of the lamp that Mrs. Clarke's slowly gather- 
 ing indignation against Barbara came to a head. 
 
 "She doesn't want you, Elsie. She wants to be
 
 PARTING 187 
 
 trapesing about alone with some man or other. I call 
 it very unkind and selfish." 
 
 "Oh no, Mrs. Clarke ! Barbara is not selfish. You 
 don't know Barbara," said Elsie loyally. But she was 
 unable to conceal the truth from herself, for even in 
 the mornings when they went out together the elder 
 sister was rather silent and took no real interest in any- 
 thing. 
 
 "If this is being in love/' she reflected, "I think 
 people ought to take something for it, and wear a band 
 round their arm like they do for vaccination, so that 
 you can keep off them until it's over. But how per- 
 fectly awful if Barbara doesn't get over it, and stops 
 like this for ever!" 
 
 When Barbara got safely outside she stood still for 
 a moment and drew in a breath of the sea air. The 
 night was misty and softly dark, as if a veil had been 
 thrown over the world; the very sound of the little 
 waves seemed muffled as they broke upon the shore. 
 
 Brooke slipped up to her quietly out of the darkness 
 where he had been waiting and put his hand through 
 her arm. 
 
 "Where shall we go?" he said speaking low as if 
 in tune with the night. 
 
 "The tide's out. Let us go along the shore." 
 
 They said very little as they walked along under the 
 shadow of the cliffs, for the weight of the impending 
 parting lay heavy on them. When they reached a 
 gravelled space sheltered by a jutting angle of the cliff 
 they sat down, and for quite a long time they sat 
 holding each other quietly, his cheek against hers, 
 which remained cold and pale in spite of their nearness.
 
 188 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 The hush! hush! of the little waves seemed to Bar- 
 bara's ears like the voice of things lost for ever never 
 to be found again. She had always thought she should 
 be so brave if she were married or engaged, and her 
 man went to the Front, and now she was feeling like 
 this ; the only thing she could do was to keep quiet and 
 refrain from saddening him more. 
 
 "Barbara!" he whispered at last. "I feel as if I 
 couldn't go and leave you." 
 
 "You'll soon be back on leave. A few months will 
 soon pass," said Barbara, in a flat, dull tone she scarcely 
 recognised as her own. 
 
 "You don't love me as I love you or a few months 
 would seem for ever," he answered, kissing her. "Oh, 
 Barbara, if only you could have married me before 
 I went ! I longed to ask you, but I feared to take ad- 
 vantage . . . you two girls here alone. You might 
 have been my wife by now if we had only chanced it. 
 It's the first time in my life I have stopped to consider 
 risks, but it's because I love you so." 
 
 "And I love you. I don't feel as if I could let you 
 go. I'm a coward, I know; but I feel as if I couldn't." 
 
 She fought against her tears but they would come. 
 Her low sobbing mingled with the sound of the little 
 waves on the shore. She felt herself to be utterly 
 miserable as she lay there sobbing with his arm close 
 about her, knowing the greatness of his love; but she 
 was really tasting one of those few joys in life which 
 are so keen that they are scarcely distinguishable from 
 pain. . . . 
 
 "You'll stick to me, Barbara?" he said. "Whatever 
 happens, you'll stick to me!" 
 
 "You know I will ! You know I will !"
 
 PARTING 189 
 
 So they clung together and there were tears in his 
 eyes too. After a while he sat up and fumbled in his 
 pocket. 
 
 "Here's the wedding-ring, Barbara," he said. "I 
 want you to take care of it until I come back. Then 
 it'll be all ready " 
 
 "Oh, Julian!" 
 
 "Oh, Barbara!" 
 
 They clung together again . . . they were unhappy 
 and yet all the joy in the world was theirs . . . they 
 believed in perfect happiness. 
 
 He parted her slim fingers in the dark to find her 
 wedding finger. 
 
 "Let us see if it fits," he said. Then he pressed it 
 to his lips. "My little wife. . . . Oh, if you only 
 were!" . . . 
 
 "I couldn't be any more faithful then than I shall 
 be now," she answered. 
 
 "Darling ! My own Barbara !" 
 
 For a long time they sat there, holding each other 
 close and murmuring words of love. At last they rose 
 and began to walk back towards the town. And now 
 both began to say how quickly the months would pass, 
 and how often they would hear from each other. A 
 stranger walking behind would almost have thought 
 Brooke pleased to go back to France, and Barbara 
 pleased to have him go. 
 
 As they went the moon rose, and it was shining 
 mistily above the town when they stopped for their 
 last embrace at the end of the terrace. Brooke took 
 her left hand again and kissed it passionately. 
 
 "My wife!" 
 
 Then they stood murmuring together again those
 
 igo THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 things which cannot be written. At last she dragged 
 herself away from his arms and started running blindly 
 towards the house. He caught her up and held her 
 again. They heard a clock chime the hour and he had 
 to leave her. 
 
 "Julian!" 
 
 It was her whole being that called after him as he 
 hurried along, but he could not hear her in a little 
 while she slowly went up the steps into the house. 
 
 She paused outside the room where Mrs. Clarke and 
 Elsie sat reading and said through the half-open 
 door 
 
 "Good-night!" 
 
 There was the rustle of Mrs. Clarke and Elsie mov- 
 ing. 
 
 "You're not going to bed yet, Barbara? Aren't you 
 going to have some cocoa?" 
 
 "No, thank you. I'm tired." 
 
 She remained in shadow, remembering suddenly that 
 she still wore the wedding-ring. She tried to remove 
 it and it would not come off. 
 
 "Barbara!" called Elsie. 
 
 She ran upstairs without answering, wrapping her 
 hand in her handkerchief. In two or three minutes 
 Elsie followed to find her bending over the wash-basin 
 with her hand in the cold water. 
 
 "What is it? Hurt your hand, Barbara?" 
 
 Barbara muttered something which might be Yes 
 or No. 
 
 "Let me see," said Elsie. 
 
 Barbara covered her hand with the sponge and said 
 impatiently : "Oh, it's nothing ! Don't worry me !"
 
 PARTING 191 
 
 Elsie went away and sat down on the bed. 
 
 "If that's how you take it!" 
 
 And they talked no more until Barbara was about to 
 put out the light; when Elsie said 
 
 "Finger better, old girl?" 
 
 Barbara's nerves were in that overstrung state when 
 the least touch makes them quiver responsive with a 
 keenness that hurts, so she felt the tears rising to her 
 eyes and turned out the light hastily to hide them, say- 
 ing in a muffled voice 
 
 "Yes, thank you. Sorry I was so chippy!" 
 
 There was a pause, then Elsie's voice came low and 
 excited across the darkness. 
 
 "I say, that was a wedding-ring! It's no use pre- 
 tending I didn't see. What's happened, Barbara?" 
 
 There was another pause. Then Barbara said 
 
 "I'm engaged to Brooke. This ring is ready for us 
 to get married when he comes back." 
 
 "Engaged! Oh! what will Mother and Father say? 
 Why, you'll be sister-in-law sort of to Miss Pell- 
 ing's Lillie!" 
 
 And Barbara felt a tremendous relief at this sudden 
 loosening of an almost unbearable tension which Elsie's 
 remark had somehow caused. 
 
 "As if that mattered !" she answered. "People don't 
 bother about such things now. The war has done that 
 much good at any rate." 
 
 "But he's a widower," said Elsie. "And he lives in 
 Canada when he is not a soldier. I don't know how 
 you can!" 
 
 Barbara sat up, bright-eyed in the darkness. 
 
 "I don't care! I shouldn't care tuppence if he had
 
 192 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 been married a hundred times and lived at the North 
 Pole. So there !" 
 
 "Poor old Barbie!" said Elsie, her sharp, girlish 
 voice in queer contrast to the elderly tolerance of her 
 tone. "I suppose you can't help it. Now you'll have 
 to turn out before breakfast to get that ring filed off, 
 unless you want Mrs. Clarke to see it and the shops 
 won't be open till nine. You won't get back until 
 breakfast is all cold and I shall have to tell some lie 
 or other about your going bathing." 
 
 "You needn't do that! I shall bathe, of course, if 
 I say so," responded Barbara, suddenly aware that her 
 accustomed elder-sisterly role was slipping away from 
 her for good.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE END OF SUMMER 
 
 WHEN the girls returned to Chestnut Avenue after 
 their holiday the summer was over leaves al- 
 ready blowing in a coolish wind and the autumn not 
 yet set in. Mr. and Mrs. Simpson unconsciously 
 watched the flight of a grimy plane-leaf across the win- 
 dow; then Mr. Simpson said 
 
 "We're not parents in a play. If Barbara will have 
 him, we must make the best of it. But I must own 
 that I am bitterly disappointed bitterly disappointed !" 
 
 "So am I; only we want our girl to be happy, and 
 young people will look for happiness in their own way. 
 We wouldn't have her marry any man unless she loves 
 him," Mrs. Simpson said. 
 
 "She used to fancy she loved Garret, though," 
 argued Mr. Simpson. "What's the fancy of a girl 
 who changes like that, against a good husband and a 
 good home? We can't live for ever. ... I do wish 
 you would show more common sense, Harriet." 
 
 He knocked out his pipe impatiently, angry with 
 his wife because he was anxious and troubled for her 
 and his children, after the manner of the decent hus- 
 band all the world over. 
 
 "Well, it's done now," answered Mrs. Simpson. 
 "Nothing we can say will move Barbara." She 
 
 193
 
 194 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 paused, then added in a low tone : "Don't worry so, 
 
 Sam. Brooke may never " She paused, turning 
 
 away from her husband. 
 
 "Oh, I shouldn't like to count on that!" he said 
 hastily. 
 
 "Of course not." 
 
 There was a pause, both Mr. and Mrs. Simpson 
 knowing what they had almost hoped then he said : 
 "Well, we must go into all the pros and cons when 
 Brooke comes back. He is at the base. He's sure to 
 come back all right." 
 
 "Yes. His arm is not perfectly sound yet. Of 
 course they won't send him into the firing line. I feel 
 sure he will come back safe." 
 
 Thus they soothed with words that shame which 
 stirred like an ache in the bottom of their minds. 
 
 "I am sending him this pair of socks," said Mrs. 
 Simpson beginning to knit again. 
 
 "Good idea." Mr. Simpson touched a beautiful 
 peach on a dish near. "I suppose Frank Garret grows 
 these." 
 
 "Yes. He has that place outside Flodmouth that 
 belonged to his cousin, on his hands still. He told me 
 he was just keeping the gardens from going to ruin." 
 
 "The girls are using the tickets he sent for the Red 
 Cross Matinee to-morrow after all," said Mrs. Simp- 
 son, beginning again after a pause. "Elsie was keen 
 to go, and I think Barbara feels she neglected her sis- 
 ter at Scarcliffe. She seems anxious to do anything 
 she can to make up for it." 
 
 "Poor Barbara! I know she was dreadfully upset 
 when she found you couldn't get a charwoman after 
 .all while they were away," said Mr. Simpson.
 
 THE END OF SUMMER 195 
 
 "There's no doubt the work did knock you up. You 
 have been worse again since." 
 
 "Then I shall get better again," said Mrs. Simpson 
 smiling. "Poor Sam, to have such an old crock for a 
 wife!" 
 
 "Well! I'll go and get a lettuce for supper. I saw 
 there was one just ready last night: a beauty," said 
 Mr. Simpson. 
 
 But though that was all his response, Mrs. Simpson 
 knew quite well what it meant: and when he brought 
 his fine lettuce in, so proud of its firm heart and large 
 size, she knew it to be a token of love. For Mr. Simp- 
 son had loved his wife as Barbara loved Brooke, though 
 Barbara would have deemed this so impossible in a 
 father of his age and figure. But while Mrs. Simpson 
 loved her husband dearly, her passion was for her 
 children. 
 
 "What am I to say to Barbara, then?" she asked, 
 looking at him over the fine lettuce on her knee. "That 
 we agree to the engagement, but don't want it to be 
 made public until Brooke comes home on leave ?" 
 
 "Yes. Yes, I suppose so. But I don't like it. 
 Seems a bit rough on Frank Garret, too. He seems to 
 be hanging about again." 
 
 "We won't consider that," said Mrs. Simpson flush- 
 ing. "He did not consider Barbara much during all 
 those years." 
 
 "Two wrongs don't make a right, though," said 
 Mr. Simpson. 
 
 And there you had it there you had a million Mr. 
 Simpsons a power to move the world were they but 
 united and conscious of their power. And yet perhaps 
 then something irreplaceable would be lost. . . .
 
 196 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "But we must do our best for Barbara," urged Mrs. 
 Simpson. "We both think Brooke an undesirable 
 match for her and if anything were to happen 
 She paused. "It seems no use advertising the engage- 
 ment until we are sure." 
 
 Mr. Simpson frowned. 
 
 "I don't like it," he repeated. 
 
 "But, Sam " Mrs. Simpson's breath came fast 
 
 because her heart was throbbing unpleasantly, but she 
 was going to stab her husband all the same if it would 
 bring an advantage to her child. "You must remem- 
 ber that your business is gone. It was no fault of 
 yours, but you can do nothing for your daughters. 
 You must put your personal feelings on one side and 
 let me judge in this matter what is for the best." 
 
 Mr. Simpson waited a moment, staring at his boots, 
 filled with a dreary sense of failure such as he had 
 never known before, even in his worst moments. Then 
 he turned round to his wife. 
 
 "Very well," he said. "I can't do anything for 
 them. Do as you like." And he went out. 
 
 She saw how she had hurt him, but knew too much 
 to touch the wound she had made. 
 
 Barbara felt the slight unevenness of a letter tucked 
 into her blouse as she put away the bread, but she 
 awaited a time when she could be undisturbed. Her 
 own turbulent thoughts and emotions made her un- 
 willing to read Brooke's first letter from France under 
 the keen eye of her younger sister. She had an uncon- 
 scious intuition that if Elsie saw her doing it, that 
 tiresome young person would know more about her 
 state of mind than she did herself.
 
 THE END OF SUMMER 197 
 
 At last she was free to seek her harbour of refuge, 
 the bathroom, and she locked the door in a frenzy of 
 irritation quite beyond any reason for it. Her hands 
 shook as she took the crisp, thin paper from the envel- 
 ope and the words all ran together. She sat down on 
 the wooden ledge of the bath. Gradually, the words 
 ceased to dance in the greenish light which shone 
 through the thick glass of the bathroom window. 
 
 They settled down into words of golden fire, though 
 they were neither more nor less eloquent than thou- 
 sands coming across to England by the same post. But 
 they, like the rest, set up a circuit of thoughts and emo- 
 tions, and had no more actual relation to a wonder 
 achieved than the telegraph pole ; they were but the in- 
 struments through which Barbara was able to feel once 
 more for a moment or two as she did upon the sands at 
 Scarcliffe. The thrill of contact on first reading was 
 so real that it seemed like his lips on hers; but with 
 the second time it faded, though reason struggled 
 against feeling and made her tell herself this was not 
 so; while at the end of half an hour the letter was just 
 a very dear love-letter which had once been alive, and 
 would be dear always but never alive any more. 
 
 Nothing would have made Barbara own this even to 
 herself; and indeed the paper his hands had touched 
 and the plain account of his days, with a phrase that 
 would read to strangers like utter folly towards the 
 middle and again at the end, did have a value for her 
 beyond all reckoning. 
 
 She sat dreaming in the green twilight of the bath- 
 room like a maid of legend in the pellucid depths of 
 the ocean as far from conscience as removed al- 
 most from the real issues of life. Then Elsie rattled
 
 1 9 8 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 at the door, and all the complicated machinery of hu- 
 man existence once more sounded in her ears, breaking 
 the spell. She rose, and called out sharply 
 
 "What do you want ? You can't come in." 
 
 "I say, Barbara! What is it? There's nothing 
 wrong is there?" asked Elsie in a low voice through 
 the crack of the door. "Brooke is not ill or wounded 
 again ?" 
 
 Barbara flung open the door impatiently. 
 
 "Hush! Mother will hear. Surely my being in the 
 bathroom is no sign of anything wrong with Julian, 
 silly!" 
 
 "I knew you came here to read his letter," said 
 Elsie, shutting the door behind her. The girls were 
 very near together in the narrow, enclosed space with 
 its white walls and greenish light. "Barbara," she 
 continued earnestly, "do you really want him or don't 
 you? If you don't, you simply shan't stick to it be- 
 cause you've promised. I'll write to him and tell him 
 the truth myself first. You got carried away. I'm 
 sure that was it. And now Frank is hanging round 
 again you see you have made a mistake. I detest 
 Frank, but it seems as if you must have a young man : 
 so I'd rather you had one we know something about." 
 
 "I don't want Frank to send things," said Barbara. 
 ,"It seems like encouraging other men while Julian is 
 away at the Front, and I think girls aren't fit to live 
 who do that sort of thing." 
 
 "So do I. That's why I think you ought to be en- 
 gaged openly either to Brooke or to Frank Garret. I 
 hate a lot of secrets when there's no need for them. 
 It's like sitting in a stuffy room with all the windows
 
 THE END OF SUMMER 199 
 
 shut, when you've only to get up and open them. I 
 don't know how you can." 
 
 But neither could Barbara tell what undercurrents 
 of feeling had made her promise against her will that: 
 she would wait until Brooke's next leave before an- 
 nouncing her engagement. It was really the subcon- 
 scious knowledge that she was prepared to sacrifice 
 her family for her lover which made her ready to give 
 them what she could now, in a spirit of remorseful 
 tenderness. She had always loved them so, and yet 
 now they scarcely mattered vitally any longer. She 
 felt urged all the time to make it up to them while she 
 could. 
 
 "Look here, Elsie," she said, "don't you bother 
 yourself any more. I I wouldn't change him for a 
 duke with a million a year." 
 
 "Um! Well, it's your affair, of course," replied 
 Elsie. "Only never say afterwards that you had no- 
 body to take an interest and so were forced to follow 
 the dictates of your own blind heart, like a heroine 
 in a novel." She bent forward, staring at Barbara 
 with fierce, yellow eyes under her great mop of dark 
 hair. "You've me!" she added. "Never you forget 
 that! I'm always ready to talk things over and tell 
 you what I think." 
 
 Barbara was obliged to laugh at that though she 
 felt rather worried and overstrung. 
 
 "No fear!" she said. "Here, get these taps polished 
 if you want something to do. What do you know 
 about love ?" 
 
 "Well, I can understand Romeo and Juliet, so I 
 should be able to understand, Barbara Simpson and
 
 200 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 Private Brooke," said Elsie, going out of the room 
 with her head in the air. 
 
 Thus it came about that Barbara's engagement was 
 not spoken of in Chestnut Avenue, where the occa- 
 sional visits of Mr. Frank Garret once more began to 
 cause comment as they had done years ago before the 
 neighbours had ceased to expect any further develop- 
 ments. Very little was said, after all, because every 
 one was too busy, or too sad, or too anxious, to care 
 greatly about Barbara Simpson's love affairs, but there 
 remained that tendency to gossip which must exist in 
 every community small enough to be in any sense a 
 human family. 
 
 It was rather comforting than otherwise to Miss 
 Felling, for instance, to know that her neighbours 
 were discussing her diminished income and the fact 
 that she was learning with difficulty to clean and bake 
 in the intervals of hospital work. She did not know 
 this, of course, and imagined that she was annoyed 
 by their curiosity; still she was deeply aware in some 
 region beyond her clear-cut thoughts that anything 
 was better than nobody caring. But her appearance 
 after the operation of blacking the kitchen grate for 
 the first time was such that Mr. Binny, chancing to be 
 at a back window and seeing her emerge with the ashes, 
 was impelled to murmur solemnly : "Thank God I 
 didn't do it! I might have run away." 
 
 All the same when Barbara said to Miss Felling, 
 "I'm afraid this housework is an awful bother to you," 
 she was met w r ith such a violent "I tell you I'm en- 
 joying it!" that there was no more to be said. 
 
 This, however, was no heroic pose on the part of a
 
 THE END OF SUMMER' 201 
 
 spinster who could not be transformed into a perfect 
 domestic worker by the great influence of patriotism 
 in about a week like a lady in a book, but the defence 
 of one who hated pity even more than she hated house- 
 work which \vas saying a good deal. 
 
 It was an example of the way in which everything 
 in life was being turned upside down that Miss Felling 
 should glance forth from her window during the after- 
 noon with a mark of black dust over one eye. A tall, 
 smart lady was coming up the path, wearing a fashion- 
 able costume, and with the most exquisite complexion 
 that could be bought for money so exquisite indeed, 
 that one artistic flaw would have left the admiring on- 
 looker uncertain whether it was a gift of Providence 
 or a purchase from a different quarter. However 
 Miss Felling was no respecter of persons, and went to 
 the door prepared to greet anybody from a shipping 
 magnate's wife to a young lad^ from the shoemaker's 
 round the corner. 
 
 "Good-afternoon," she said briskly. 
 
 The lady said nothing, but stood and stared at Miss 
 Felling. Miss Felling stood and stared at her. There 
 was something familiar. . . . 
 
 No, she hadn't seen the lady with the elaborately 
 waved hair and lovely complexion before. 
 
 "What can I do for you ?" she concluded. 
 
 "Nothing, Miss Felling. You've done enough, you 
 have!" 
 
 "Lillie!" cried Miss Felling. Then she noted again 
 the over-smart appearance of her old servant. "Oh, 
 I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. And yet you have been 
 hardly treated. I don't know that I can blame
 
 202 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 She stood there with affection for Lillie, an austere 
 virtue, her queer conviction that she herself might 
 given a different nose have been one of the "high- 
 kicking, champagne-popping sort," all combining to 
 bewilder her judgment. Then she became suddenly 
 aware of the curious gaze of Mrs. Wilson opposite. 
 
 "Come in," she said. "We must talk things over." 
 
 The door closed on the two women. Lillie, who had 
 never heard the Flodmouth noises and was not con- 
 scious of hearing them now, suddenly felt the dull, 
 familiar cadence and the high shriek of an engine whis- 
 tle. It accentuated that silence of the closed house 
 which became terrible to her as she stood on the lino- 
 leum trying to force a question over her dry lips that 
 for the first time in her life refused to obey her. She 
 licked their artificial freshness with her tongue and 
 said 
 
 "Then Baby isn't here? He's not " She 
 
 could not say any more. 
 
 "No! No!" cried Miss Felling. "He's all right. 
 He is being taken care of by Mrs. Hobby, the porter's 
 wife. He is quite strong and well." 
 
 Lillie leaned back for a moment against the wall 
 while the little hall with the pictures she had so often 
 dusted swam about her. 
 
 "You did give me a turn," she said faintly. "I 
 thought maybe he had got smothered in the basket, 
 or you hadn't found him in time, or something." 
 
 "How could you do such a trick ?" said Miss Felling. 
 "But come in and sit down: you don't look fit to 
 stand." 
 
 So Lillie followed into the kitchen and sat down in 
 her smart clothes on the high-backed window chair
 
 THE END OF SUMMER 203 
 
 with the cretonne cushions which she had covered : 
 while Miss Felling took the other, with roughened 
 hands resting on a soiled apron and shabby shoes 
 sticking out under an old skirt. They were very grave 
 and not thinking at all of their reversed positions as 
 they sat in the same way as they had often done in 
 the past when the mistress came in, in her walking 
 things, to have a few words with her excellent servant. 
 
 "Miss Felling," said Lillie, "you may well wonder 
 at me doing such a thing. But when you're driven into 
 a tight corner, same as I was, you do things you would 
 never have dreamt of. And I knew I could trust you. 
 I hadn't been with you all them years without finding 
 that out." 
 
 "Um! Well, that's something," said Miss Felling. 
 "But why didn't you just write to me for help like a 
 sensible woman ?" 
 
 Lillie hesitated. 
 
 "I'll be straight with you, Miss Felling. I knew 
 you would want to help me in your way, and I wanted 
 you to help me in my way. That's where it came in. 
 I couldn't bear to be set up in a little house to look after 
 my baby in a sort of disgrace and people being sorry 
 for me. I daresay I was a wicked mother, but that's 
 how I felt" 
 
 Miss Felling shook her head. There had always 
 been a real bond of sympathy between her and Lillie 
 which this appeal strengthened, but she considered it 
 her duty to say rather sternly 
 
 "Your duty to your child ought to have come before 
 every other consideration." 
 
 "Well " Lillie left it at that. "So I got the offer 
 
 of a good place with a lady that kept a shop for im-
 
 204 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 proving people's hairs and complexions." ("A real 
 clever hand she is, you can see what she's done for 
 me," added Lillie, in parenthesis.) "I was sort of 
 general servant and did all for her in the living part of 
 the house, and she said she was comfortabler than what 
 she'd ever been in her life. I used to put on uniform 
 sometimes, and help to show people into the shop and 
 that, when they were short-handed. That was how I 
 met " 
 
 Lillie seemed to have a difficulty in proceeding. 
 
 "Surely you didn't make a fool of yourself over 
 another man? I should have thought you had had 
 enough," said Miss Felling. 
 
 "If you mean Bob Brooke I don't regret it, and I 
 never shall!" flashed out Lillie. "He didn't behave 
 right, but I'm glad I came across him, and I always 
 shall be glad. Even when that wife turned up and 
 started scrapping with me about the separation allow- 
 ance I didn't wish I'd never seen him." She pushed 
 back her beautifully waved hair. "But that's all over 
 and done with. I didn't come here to tell you that. I 
 
 came " She paused. "Miss Felling, I'm going 
 
 to be married again!" 
 
 "What!" cried Miss Felling. "After all you've 
 just " 
 
 Lillie nodded. 
 
 "This is a different thing altogether. He's an old 
 bachelor getting into years, and he has suddenly found 
 out he wants a good cook and housekeeper that can't 
 give notice though he does go on so about my beau- 
 tiful hair. And I want a good home for myself and 
 the child. Fair exchange is no robbery." 
 
 "Is he a nice man in himself, though, Lillie?" said
 
 THE END OF SUMMER 205 
 
 Miss Felling. "It would be dreadful for both you 
 and the boy if you got some one who was not kind." 
 
 "Oh yes, he's a decent old sort enough," said Lillie. 
 "Only reason he didn't marry before was because he 
 felt frightened of not being so comfortable with a 
 wife and family as he was without, and always kept 
 wondering whether he wasn't giving himself away too 
 cheap. Such like often pick up the crooked stick at 
 last." 
 
 "He is lucky to get a woman such as you," said Miss 
 Felling. "Is he well off?" 
 
 "Yes. That reminds me '' She took out a note- 
 case from her handsome bag. "Miss Felling," she 
 said earnestly, "no money won't pay for what you've 
 done, but I should like to give you the out-of-pocket 
 expenses you've been put to with Baby. He Mr. 
 Waggley knows all about it, and he gave me plenty 
 to pay up." 
 
 "You owe me nothing, Lillie," said Miss Felling. 
 "You don't know that your your first husband met 
 his brother Julian when they both lay wounded side 
 by side at Rouen. It was one of those strange chances 
 that are always happening in this war." 
 
 "Oh, Miss Felling! Did you hear what Bob said? 
 Did he tell his brother about me?" asked Lillie. "It 
 seems like a message from the dead." And she began 
 to weep. 
 
 "He spoke of you and gave my address. That was 
 how Mr. Julian Brooke found out where Baby was, 
 and he insisted on paying for the child's maintenance," 
 said Miss Felling. 
 
 "Julian ?" said Lillie. "I think I've heard Bob men- 
 tion him. He was the youngest. But they hadn't
 
 206 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 seen each other for a long time and my poor old man 
 never had much to say about his relations. You can't 
 wonder." 
 
 "You can't indeed," said Miss Felling grimly. 
 
 "But I should like to see this Julian. I want to 
 hear what they said, and how Bob looked poor fel- 
 ler!" said Lillie. 
 
 "You can't do that, I am afraid. Julian Brooke is 
 in France," said Miss Felling; then she hesitated, but 
 at last her good heart had its way: "I'll pop across 
 and ask Miss Barbara to come and speak to you. She 
 saw something of your man's brother and may be 
 able to tell you more than I can." 
 
 "You are good to me," wept Lillie, quite overcome. 
 "I've liked you better than anybody in the world but 
 him, for all you were so aggravating about bringing 
 the dirt out of the garden into the front hall and being 
 late for your meals." 
 
 Miss Felling ran across to the Simpsons, where she 
 briefly explained her errand, and in five minutes she 
 and Barbara entered the kitchen together. 
 
 "Oh, Miss Barbara!" cried Lillie. "Miss Felling 
 says you saw my man's brother; Julian, they called 
 him." 
 
 Barbara flushed deeply. She found it so odd to hear 
 that dear name, which no one had used in her hearing 
 but herself, come so casually from the lips of Miss 
 Felling's Lillie. Of course the situation was quite nat- 
 ural and expected, but still Barbara did find it strange 
 to be confronted with the fact that she was, in a 
 way, a sister-in-law of Lillie. But this only lasted a 
 moment, and immediately afterwards despite the 
 girl's tinted complexion and superficial smartness her
 
 THE END OF SUMMER 207 
 
 heart went out towards one who had lost Julian's 
 brother. 
 
 "I'm afraid I know so little," she said. "But when 
 your man was dying he made Julian promise to seek 
 you out and stand by you. His last thought seems to 
 have been for you." 
 
 "You didn't get to know what he said exactly not 
 any words you can remember? I should like to have 
 known the words," said Lillie eagerly. "If you could 
 only have remembered one thing Bob said: just one 
 little thing." 
 
 "I can't," said Barbara. "I'm so sorry." Then she 
 stood looking at the pattern of the hearthrug before 
 the kitchen fire: diamonds squares the red oval in 
 the middle ; and yet she was only trying to fix her mind 
 on that lest it should betray her into something vague, 
 not definitely perceived, that she would be sorry for 
 afterwards. 
 
 "Well," said Lillie as she rose, sighing; "I shan't 
 see Julian now, even if he does come home, and it 
 isn't a thing you can get to know by writing not to 
 any sense. The gentleman I'm going to marry is easy 
 enough in most ways, but he won't let me hold no 
 communications with any of the Brooke family. He 
 said so flat, and he means it, and I suppose you can't 
 blame him. After all, a bigamy is a bigamy, even if 
 it comes out all right in the end. Only I do wish I 
 could have known what poor Bob said that night. It 
 would have been a sort of comfort to me. There'll 
 never be anybody like him." 
 
 Still Barbara counted; diamonds squares the red 
 oval : then she ceased to count. 
 
 "Lillie," she said, "I'm going to trust you and Miss
 
 2o8 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 Felling with a secret. I I'm engaged to Julian 
 Brooke. And when he comes back I'll find out as 
 exactly as I can what Bob said and write it to you. I 
 know oh ! I know how you feel !" And to her sur- 
 prise, Barbara felt the tears running down her cheeks. 
 
 "It's very kind of you, Miss Barbara," said Lillie 
 quietly and gravely. "I hope your young gentleman 
 will come home safe from France, and that you'll live 
 happy with him. There's nothing on earth like getting 
 the one you're really gone on, and if it doesn't last 
 you've had it: haven't you? Things has turned out 
 all right, but if they'd been ever so bad I'd rather have 
 done as I have done, than stopped comfortable with 
 Miss Felling. And now, I must be going to Mrs. 
 Hobby's to see about taking Baby away." 
 
 "You'll return here for the night at any rate?" said 
 Miss Felling. 
 
 "No, thank you. I wasn't sure how you'd look at 
 things, and so I took a room at a temperance hotel. 
 But I shall come to bid you good-bye," said Lillie. So 
 Barbara and Miss Felling accompanied ' er to the door, 
 and she bade them farewell, but seemed unable to go, 
 hovering uncertainly on the mat. 
 
 "I haven't said . . ." she began, then stopped short. 
 "You must think . . ." she started again, and again 
 broke off. At last she managed to blurt out : "I don't 
 want you to think I didn't want my baby. You don't 
 know . . . them nights!" And she went away down 
 the Avenue with Barbara and Miss Felling staring 
 after her fashionable, imposing figure until it turned 
 the corner. 
 
 "Is this true about your engagement, Barbara?" 
 said Miss Felling turning to Barbara then. "But of
 
 THE END OF SUMMER 209 
 
 course it is! You wouldn't be likely to make a joke 
 of such a thing at such a time. I suppose your father 
 and mother don't approve and want it kept dark?" 
 
 "Yes! I have promised to say nothing until Julian 
 comes home on leave. I ought not even to have told 
 you." 
 
 "Oh, I'm safe!" said Miss Felling. 
 
 "Of course I know that," said Barbara. "Well, I 
 must hurry off now. I promised to take tea with Mrs. 
 Du Caine and the children." 
 
 "And I must get 'cleaned.' I wonder what Lillie 
 thought of my blackleading," said Miss Felling with a 
 laugh. 
 
 But she thought rather sadly that Barbara came 
 very seldom to see her now, and yet she realised that 
 youth must cling to youth ; it was natural enough that 
 these two girls with a husband and a sweetheart out in 
 France should be drawn closer together while she was 
 left outside. So she washed herself with a quite fierce 
 thoroughness and went forth to take night duty at the 
 Hospital, thanking God for work, like many another 
 lonely woman in Flodmouth that evening. 
 
 In going down the Avenue she encountered Mr. 
 Binny, who was coming home rather grey-faced and 
 drooping, his long, lean figure gaunt against the twi- 
 light, and she stopped in neighbourly fashion to tell 
 him about Lillie. 
 
 "Dear! Dear! You'll be very glad," he said. ''You 
 behaved with quite unusual kindness to your maid. It 
 all fits in, no doubt, with your democratic ideas." 
 
 "I don't know what you mean by that," retorted 
 Miss Felling. "I liked Lillie. But if you mean to say 
 I join hands with the working man and prance round
 
 210 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 a statue of Anarchy so as to be 'in it,' in case any- 
 thing happens well, I don't! I leave that to the 
 titled ladies in the newspapers." 
 
 And she whisked away down the street, leaving Mr. 
 Binny to sigh as he entered his own gate. Her sharp- 
 ness pleasantly titillated his rather sluggish mind, and 
 he felt lonely and tired and vaguely desired cheerful 
 female company beside his hearth. So long as his 
 sisters lived he had been all right but for the stirrings 
 of emotion from which no man is exempt, and there 
 had been no alternative he was obliged to remain un- 
 married in order to keep first a mother and then his 
 sisters. Only now when he could afford to take a wife, 
 the ardour which would overcome all obstacles had 
 petered out: he simply could not get over Miss Pell- 
 ing's nose. 
 
 By all the laws of justice and sentiment this should 
 not have been so, but it was : Mr. Binny sighed again 
 and went into the house while Miss Felling walked 
 cheerfully along the Avenue, not troubling about her 
 nose at all, for the mental enamel which she had in- 
 stinctively developed to protect the quivering sensi- 
 tiveness of a child who was different from other chil- 
 dren, had become permanent, and she could never 
 again feel the agony she knew in her schooldays when 
 the boys shouted "Nosey !" after her in the street. 
 
 Next morning Barbara chanced to see little Kitch- 
 ener being taken away in a cab to the railway station 
 by his mother, and she suddenly realised that the one 
 outside link between Brooke and Flodmouth had been 
 severed. Nothing could connect him with the place 
 or even bring him back there, but his love for her.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 SACRIFICE 
 
 THE Daylight Saving Order had ceased for the 
 time being, and it seemed then, with the sudden 
 shortness of the days so brought, as if winter came all 
 at once to the Avenue. Not the pleasant settling down 
 to the indoor interests and amusements, which had 
 once given to Flodmouth at this time of year the aspect 
 of a jolly family coming back to work and play after 
 the summer holidays; but the beginning of the fourth 
 winter of the war. 
 
 Mr. Simpson, returning from his office some two 
 hours later than he used to do, with a heavy cold on 
 him and damp fog irritating his bronchial tubes, 
 thought heavily of what that change signified. As he 
 passed a public-house he heard two dim figures talking 
 together 
 
 "Time this war was finished one way or another: 
 I'm dead sick of it. It ought to get stopped at any 
 cost. What are we going to get out of it?" 
 
 And for the moment his own tired heart echoed 
 what he heard. ... It was true enough. In a few 
 years he would be out of the whole affair, anyway, 
 and he was losing everything. What was the good of 
 it all? He sneezed violently, permeated with a sense 
 of the utter uselessness of his fortitude and suffering. 
 
 211
 
 212 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 Then he turned into the Avenue and bumped up against 
 Mr. Wilson : he would have given almost anything 
 at that. moment to avoid speaking to Mr. Wilson, but 
 was forced to brace himself up to it. 
 
 "Good evening. I've just heard . . . I'm truly 
 sorry, Wilson." 
 
 "Thank you. You've lost your lad, too. You know 
 what it is. . . ." All Mr. Wilson's pompousness had 
 faded out of him and he was just a desolate, middle- 
 aged man going home through the raw, chill darkness 
 of a Flodmouth autumn evening. 
 
 After a moment or two Mr. Simpson spoke again 
 
 "How's Mrs. Wilson?" 
 
 "Oh, she's splendid after the first shock. A Mother 
 feels it as no one else can, of course." 
 
 And this echo of Mrs. Wilson's capital "M" sound- 
 ing through her husband's dull voice was somehow no 
 longer ludicrous but deeply pathetic. 
 
 "Good-night, Simpson." 
 
 They parted with relief, and yet they were the bet- 
 ter for having spoken to each other; though they had, 
 in a sense, said nothing at all. It never occurred to 
 either of them, of course, to speak of that place to 
 which their only sons had gone. Mr. Wilson, indeed, 
 rather thought that he had no definite religious opin- 
 ions and no definite belief in a future life; but as he 
 plodded into his house where his wife sat trying not 
 to cry for his sake, he did most deeply believe that his 
 boy was alive with God, and in the glorious company 
 of youths who have died for England. 
 
 For nearly every life in the Avenue now, consciously 
 or unconsciously, possessed a little window opened 
 upon heaven. Those having it might be profoundly
 
 SACRIFICE 213 
 
 unaware of its existence, but they could not help their 
 lives becoming illuminated by the light of the world 
 to come. It was this their boys had done. As they 
 went, they opened that window. 
 
 So Mr. Simpson, though with a bad cold and fretted 
 by unaccustomed routine work, felt absolutely certain 
 that he had not lost sight of Jim altogether. And as 
 he walked on he began to feel a little less miserable 
 without knowing why. But there is no doubt that 
 Wilson's soul had looked out of that window and bid- 
 den Simpson's soul to do the same. For a moment 
 they had stood two middle-aged, tired men on their 
 way from a tedious day's business and had looked 
 into heaven as surely as any prophet in his vision. 
 
 Supper was ready almost as soon as Mr. Simpson 
 entered, and the family sat round the table talking of 
 the night before, when there had been a zeppelin alarm 
 in the city. They did not mention young Wilson's 
 death because each was afraid of saddening the other, 
 but they were all most acutely conscious of the short- 
 ness of life, and its uncertainty, and the nearness of 
 the world to come. In Barbara's case as in the case 
 of many ardent young women since the beginning of 
 history this feeling began to dominate unduly the 
 plans and actions of her present existence. The hum- 
 drum daily round, after her year's hard nursing in a 
 hospital away from home, had forced all those feel- 
 ings of high patriotism and high-strung endeavour into 
 another groove, and a less obvious one, where they had 
 no particular outlet and were likely to become a dan- 
 ger to herself. The atmosphere about her was so vi- 
 brating with thoughts of sacrifice that she began to see
 
 214 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 sacrifice as an end in itself, and no longer as a means 
 only. She began to find the sort of perverse joy in 
 giving up which has been a power in the world ever 
 since men began to think deeply; and she shared in 
 a measure the state of mind which belongs to the holy 
 man on a pillar who forces nails into his body and 
 feels he is coming near to the eternal holiness be- 
 cause the nails hurt so. 
 
 With all this, she was quite a normal, heailthy 
 girl so far; but she had deep feelings and a nature 
 which responded ardently to suggestion. As often 
 happens at times of crisis in life many small hap- 
 penings combined to accentuate one trend of thought; 
 or perhaps thought, in these circumstances, exercises 
 a sort of unconscious selection, picking out and 
 dwelling upon what will sustain a point of view. At 
 any rate, to Barbara's over-sensitive perceptions at 
 this period the Avenue was no ordinary street inhab- 
 ited by people with a thousand varying impulses, but 
 a place of sacrifice. One incident among many which 
 served to deepen this impression, took place on a wet 
 morning when she called with a magazine at that house 
 next door to Miss Felling's, where Mr. Montgomery 
 had lodged before he went away from Flodmouth with 
 his finished book of reminiscences. As no one an- 
 swered her knock she entered to lay the magazine on 
 the hall table, and found Miss Brown fainting near 
 the hat-stand. Then it transpired that the poor lady 
 had become a fruitarian mostly on cheap apples 
 in order to provide her bed-ridden mother with strong 
 beef tea. Barbara remedied this state of things with 
 Miss Felling's help so far as Miss Brown's urgent
 
 SACRIFICE 215 
 
 pleadings for secrecy and her pride would allow, but 
 the impression remained. 
 
 Her love for Brooke was mingled with these emo- 
 tions, giving them a thrilling keenness which hurt and 
 yet produced a sensation of rapture. The smart of 
 shrewd pricks running deep into her heart, in some 
 way intensified her passion for her lover. Gradually 
 he began to appear to her against a gold-dusted haze, 
 less like a real man than a girl's day-dream; a knight 
 such as a girl sees when she is very young at heart 
 and looks half-wistfully down the road of life to see 
 who is coming. 
 
 It was indeed this innocent freshness, this clear 
 youth of hers which made the deepening lines round 
 her mouth seem so oddly appealing, that had drawn 
 both Frank Garret and Brooke. They sensed without 
 knowing it the exquisite pleasure that could come from 
 that admixture of freshness and passionate feeling; 
 and in Brooke's case some unconscious inkling of its 
 dangers to a lover gave her a last and most powerful 
 attraction. He burned with such a white heat of high 
 emotion during these days that the bundle of her let- 
 ters which he carried about with him among the mud 
 and noise and sordid details of war seemed a talisman 
 which must keep him safe for their love. They could 
 no more really imagine it frustrated brought to this 
 for nothing than they could imagine the earth dis- 
 solved. Their letters to each other told nothing of 
 what they felt, and yet told everything; because each 
 possessed the key by which to read the cipher. 
 
 So when Brooke wrote : "Don't worry about me 
 I'm in the pink," Barbara read : "I wouldn't bring a
 
 216 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 shadow of trouble on you for all the world your love 
 keeps me safe for you." 
 
 And when she replied: "It is chilly and miserable 
 even here; real Flodmouth weather. Do be sure to 
 change your socks when they get wet," Brooke read 
 into that : "All places are unhappy ones without you. 
 Take care of yourself for the sake of your beloved." 
 
 Occasionally, at the end of a letter, both got a little 
 nearer in words to what they meant, and Brooke read 
 such a one in a half -ruined cow-stable in France by 
 the light of a guttering candle, which almost made the 
 frosty, dirty place into a bridal chamber. He felt so 
 near to her afterwards as he lay in the dark watching 
 a streak of moonlight cross the face of the snoring 
 comrade beyond him, that he and his love did indeed 
 seem to have been joined in that midnight hour by 
 bonds that nothing on earth or in heaven could break 
 asunder. 
 
 But a dog-tired soldier cannot long keep vigil, even 
 with the phantom bride of his imagination, and he was 
 soon asleep. The streak of moonlight moved across 
 from the other man's face to his own, showing most 
 plainly the scars and lines that war and a hard expe- 
 rience of life had made upon it. Even in sleep it was 
 a vigilant face, with closed lips and an alert strength 
 ready to assert itself in the first second of awakening : 
 but about the utterly fatigued attitude of his body 
 as he slept there was that slight suggestion of forlorn- 
 ness which had first caught Barbara's heart. 
 
 Barbara also lay asleep in the greyish brick house 
 which, despite all dangers and changes, seemed by com- 
 parison so sheltered so beautifully safe like a bird's
 
 SACRIFICE 217 
 
 nest in a wood beyond the range of fire though within 
 hearing of the guns. She held tight in the hand that 
 was pressed against her face, the broken wedding-ring 
 which had been filed from her finger the morning after 
 she and Brooke parted. It was the only way she 
 could enjoy her treasure because all romantic methods 
 of wearing it round her neck or against her heart were 
 open to detection by the keen-eyed Elsie, and not for 
 worlds would Barbara have exposed the secret rapture 
 of her thoughts to such a touch. They were wonder- 
 ful sacred to be hidden from every one, for all 
 time, but her lover. It would be a glory to show them 
 to him, equally as it would be a shame to let any one 
 see them. She possessed to the full that fierce mod- 
 esty of the soul which is the joy of every lover able 
 to detect it which adds the last high rapture to pos- 
 session. 
 
 And during that hour, while they both slept, a thing 
 happened which they told each other in letters received 
 by each on the same day. Both dreamed they met 
 under a great elm-tree whose yellowing leaves were 
 falling all round them, but after a first embrace the 
 "whole scene dropped into nothingness, as if a connec- 
 tion were suddenly shut off. And they awoke with a 
 sense of loss out of all proportion to the occasion 
 their very life seemed to depend on knowing what 
 followed that embrace under the elm-tree and yet 
 something, somewhere, would not let them know. 
 
 But even when Barbara learned that Brooke had 
 endured the same experience at the same time, common 
 sense said it was a likely enough thing to happen. 
 Autumn had come with the change of foliage both in 
 England and France, and they always fell asleep think-
 
 218 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 ing of each other. War and the extraordinary near- 
 ness of the spirit-world made people read into all sorts 
 of things a meaning they would never have seen in 
 ordinary times. So they both just hugged the dream 
 to their souls as a sign of nearness and then forgot all 
 about it. 
 
 At the moment of waking, however, Barbara still 
 trembled with that strange sense of loss of every- 
 thing she so ardently desired in life fading suddenly 
 into a blank nothingness. She clutched the broken 
 ring tight in her hand until it hurt her flesh as if to 
 make sure of that at least. Then came Elsie's voice, 
 startled 
 
 "They're moving about downstairs!" 
 
 "What is it? Another alarm? I never heard the 
 buzzer. Oh, there's Mrs. Bellerby's voice at the door," 
 said Barbara, springing out of bed. "She's all alone 
 in the house with Blanche and Dorothy being away : 
 I expect she is nervous." 
 
 "Silly fool! Why didn't she go to Brighton with 
 them if she feels like that," said Elsie, fastening wrong 
 buttons in her haste, and irritably rebuttoning. "I 
 hate people like her. I wish they'd all go away. And 
 now you've got my stockings." 
 
 "I haven't. Here they are," said Barbara, throwing 
 them across the room. 
 
 "That shows you did have them," said Elsie, eyes 
 blazing under her wild hair. "I do wish to good- 
 ness " 
 
 "Come, old girl; no need to get ratty because 
 there are zepps about." 
 
 Then Mr. Simpson's voice up the stairs
 
 SACRIFICE 219 
 
 "Is that you moving, girls ? You'd better come down. 
 I have to go out now." 
 
 Barbara ran to the top of the stairs, fastening her 
 dress as she went. 
 
 "All right, Father. Will you have anything before 
 you start?" 
 
 "No, no. Time I was off." 
 
 The door shut. Barbara heard Mrs. Simpson speak- 
 ing to Mrs. Bellerby in the passage 1 
 
 "We'll sit in the kitchen. The fire is still alight 
 there." 
 
 "I hope you don't mind my troubling you." . . . 
 
 But to Barbara all this seemed as yet far less real 
 than the moment under the elm-tree. She went into 
 the kitchen where the shadows of the two women 
 looked unreal and grotesque on the wall as the candle 
 wavered in the draught: then came a sharp whistling 
 sound and a heavy thud. All the windows shook. 
 
 "Where's Elsie?" cried Mrs. Simpson, running out 
 into the passage. 
 
 "Here! I'm all right," said Elsie from the dark- 
 ness. 
 
 "Why don't you come in here? Don't be afraid, 
 dear. We are only taking our share of danger with 
 all the rest," said Mrs. Simpson, very pale, with her 
 weak heart beating unpleasantly. 
 
 "If we are to be bombed, we shall be," said Mrs. 
 Bellerby, who was quite calm; to the surprise of the 
 Simpsons. (But that is another of the surprises in 
 this war-time : you never know who will be unafraid. ) 
 
 "Come on, Elsie. I'm going to make some tea," 
 said Barbara. 
 
 "Yes; do come in here, dear, out of that cold pas-
 
 220 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 sage," added Mrs. Bellerby. "You are no safer there, 
 you know, and it only worries your mother." 
 
 Suddenly Elsie was in the midst of them, her face 
 twitching as it used to do when she first began to 
 be ill. 
 
 "All right !" she said violently. "Look at me, then ! 
 Look at me. And let Mrs. Bellerby go away and say 
 I'm frightened to death in an air-raid when I'm less 
 frightened than any of you. I wish I could tear the 
 outside of me off and show you. I'm I'm just blaz- 
 ing inside with not caring, only that rotten face of 
 mine would begin to twitch. That's why I stopped 
 outside in the dark by myself. I hate you to see it." 
 
 There was another thud, further away. They turned 
 their faces towards the sound. 
 
 "It's going " 
 
 "Yes. I wonder what it has caught." 
 
 They paused. Barbara took the kettle off the fire, 
 her soft girlish face set in a stern mask on which the 
 gleam of firelight played strangely. 
 
 "They do it to frighten us. They don't care so much 
 what they hit." 
 
 "No. It's just bullying on a gigantic scale," said 
 Mrs. Simpson. 
 
 "We shall be obliged to do the same back," said 
 Mrs. Bellerby. 
 
 Elsie turned upon them, face twitching still, eyes 
 on fire. 
 
 "Yes: and can't you see that's the worst thing 
 they've done to us. They're forcing us to be like 
 themselves. The devil must be helping them. Only 
 the devil could " 
 
 "Hush, dear," said Mrs. Simpson, handing a cup
 
 SACRIFICE 221' 
 
 of tea. "Sugar? You'd better have some to-night." 
 "I don't want anything. And I can see you all think 
 I'm upset because I'm frightened, but I'm not. I wish 
 I could be like Charlotte Corday, and kill the man 
 who sent them out, and die for it next minute. I'd die 
 gladly. I'd glory in dying so." 
 
 "We've got to live and bear things quietly. That's 
 harder still," said Mrs. Simpson. "Here, sit down and 
 drink your tea, Elsie." And something in her voice 
 made Elsie sit by the table and gulp down the hot tea. 
 
 After a while they began to talk of ordinary things, 
 and Mrs. Bellerby became once more just a garrulous 
 woman, snatching refinedly at the more difficult h's 
 as she described the glories of her daughter's sojourn 
 at Brighton. 
 
 "Dear Blanche's mother-in-law, Mrs. Elliott, you 
 know, is so devoted. And as Hugh is in France, she 
 thought a week or two at a gay hotel would cheer up 
 poor Blanche, so took her to the Metropole with no 
 expense spared, and wired to Dorothy to join them. 
 It just shows what bringing girls up simply will do. I 
 can assure you, Mrs. Simpson," she lowered her tone 
 though Barbara and Elsie were in the scullery, "that 
 my dear Blanche believed the story of the doctor and 
 the apple-tree right up to the time she was married. 
 It undoubtedly gave a freshness " 
 
 "Of course," said Mrs. Simpson. 
 
 "Dear Hugh worships Blanche; simply worships 
 her," continued Mrs. Bellerby, "and now Dorothy 
 but perhaps I should not mention this, Mrs. Simpson. 
 I used to have an impression that Mr. Frank Garret 
 and Barbara ?" She paused inquiringly.
 
 222 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "How ridiculous !" said Mrs. Simpson gaily, but her 
 heart sank within her all the same at what might be 
 coming, for she and Mr. Simpson had hoped still that 
 in the end Barbara and Frank would marry. A vague 
 feeling concerning Brooke also lingered in the back 
 of their minds. They did not even put it into thought. 
 Such vague floating phrases as came to the surface : 
 "You never know," "Accidents always happening in 
 war-time," "He has been wounded before" . . . they 
 pushed quickly under at once and declined to be aware 
 of. But they were conscious that they would not 
 grieve too much if Brooke never came back, and were 
 uneasily ashamed of the feeling. It was therefore on 
 the top of all this, most uncomfortably, that Mrs. 
 Bellerby laid her next item of information. 
 
 "Frank Garret is staying at the same hotel. He 
 and the girls seem to be going about everywhere 
 together, and he is charmed with Mrs. Elliott. He 
 thinks her perfectly delightful, though Blanche says 
 she is rather silent with him. Only she is so glad to 
 make things pleasant for any old friend of Blanche's. 
 She always is giving things to Blanche and trying in 
 every way to please her, just as Hugh would like to 
 do himself. Isn't it wonderful ?" 
 
 Mrs. Simpson thought a moment. Should she have 
 done the same for her boy had Jim left a wife behind 
 him? She didn't know . . . she didn't know. . . . 
 At any rate she could and did appreciate the rare qual- 
 ity of this other boy's mother. 
 
 "It is wonderful," she said. "Blanche has indeed 
 been a fortunate girl." 
 
 "And now about Dorothy for as there really was 
 never anything, I may as well tell you that she and
 
 SACRIFICE 223 
 
 Frank are almost engaged. He has met some of 
 Blanche's new connections down there and they are 
 all most pleasant together, though of course they don't 
 mix with everybody in the hotel." She lowered her 
 voice again, though on a different note. "It almost 
 seems providential that Frank never paid Dorothy any 
 particular attention until he got all this money. And 
 when you think of all the girls in Flodmouth he has 
 run after, and never gone any further ! I feel at times 
 as if my lonely widowhood were being made up to 
 me." 
 
 Mrs. Simpson murmured something, remembering 
 with vividness the late Bellerby, who was a violent- 
 tempered man, not too sober, and whose passing and 
 leaving his income more or less intact behind him at 
 an early age, had been the greatest good fortune of 
 Mrs. Bellerby 's life greater even than the great 
 Elliott alliance. 
 
 Then Barbara stood in the doorway leading to the 
 scullery. 
 
 "Did I hear you say Dorothy and Frank Garret 
 were engaged?" 
 
 "Not officially," said Mrs. Bellerby, with a giggle 
 in which triumph and refinement struggled against 
 each other. "But I rather fancy dear Dorothy may 
 have some news to tell me soon." 
 
 "How perfectly delightful!" said Barbara with 
 enthusiasm. But she did not feel as she spoke; on 
 the contrary it seemed for the moment a sort of insult 
 that the man who had had her youth should be going 
 to marry Dorothy Bellerby. She would not have 
 married him herself now to save her family from 
 destruction, for the calibre of her love made that sort
 
 224 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 of sacrifice impossible to her. In fact her whole emo- 
 tional life was so wrapped up in her lover that she 
 could not have allowed another man to touch her in 
 the way of love, and yet she was angry that Frank 
 Garret had ceased to want her so soon. . . . 
 
 Mrs. Simpson swallowed a sigh and said cheer- 
 fully 
 
 "Dorothy will make a pretty bride." 
 
 "Yes. It seems like Tennyson, doesn't it! 'Oh! 
 happy bridesmaids do make happy brides!' It goes 
 something like that, doesn't it? And so true." 
 
 "Well, I only hope " began Mrs. Simpson. 
 
 Then she broke off; and they sat, heads raised, eyes 
 fixed, listening. 
 
 "That's the 'All clear' buzzer, isn't it?" 
 
 "Yes!" 
 
 "Thank goodness!" 
 
 Mrs. Bellerby rose and put on her shawl. 
 
 "Then I'll be going. I need not inflict myself on 
 you any longer. I'm sure you'll want to get off to 
 bed." 
 
 They went with her down the passage and stood 
 in the faint light of dawn that lit the Avenue through 
 a choking dampness that passed like a real presence 
 from the great River Flod to the mainland. 
 
 "You'll be done up after this, Mrs. Simpson." 
 
 "Oh no. So glad you came. Do be sure and come^ 
 any time you are at all uneasy, Mrs. Bellerby." 
 
 They spoke aimlessly, wearily, glancing at the 
 houses opposite. 
 
 "Good thing for Miss Felling she's away." 
 
 "Yes. She went almost immediately after Lillie 
 took the child to London."
 
 SACRIFICE 225 
 
 They paused, wanting to go to bed, and yet unable 
 to say the last word. 
 
 "I have often wondered what happened to the 
 soldier who came to see about that child." 
 
 "He's out in France." 
 
 "Well, I don't suppose we shall ever see him again. 
 Nothing to bring him to Flodmouth. But he behaved 
 very well about the child." 
 
 At last Mrs. Bellerby departed, and Mrs. Simpson 
 and the girls banked up the fire against Mr. Simpson's 
 return. 
 
 "We'd better go to bed. No use sitting up, is 
 there?" 
 
 "No. Leave the kettle on the hob. Your Father 
 will only be worried if he finds us here." 
 
 They went upstairs and the two girls closed the door 
 of their big attic bedroom : dawn was strengthening 
 outside as they drew up the blinds, letting in the cool, 
 damp air. 
 
 "I wish we'd all stayed in bed," said Barbara. 
 
 "Um!" Elsie sat on her bed edge, frowning and 
 thinking deeply. She looked grey-white and exhausted, 
 but her eyes burnt very bright. "Barbara, I wonder 
 if we can none of us help it not the Germans or any 
 of us. I wonder if it's just some terrible law of 
 Nature that drives men to kill each other when the 
 world gets too settled and too full. If you read history 
 it seems to happen so over and over again " 
 
 "How can you think such things, Elsie?" cried 
 Barbara, turning sharp round from the looking-glass. 
 
 "I don't think them. They think themselves. I 
 hate thinking them," said Elsie, half crying with pain 
 and fatigue.
 
 226 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "Poor old girl !" said Barbara, on that crooning note 
 of hers. "Here, get your things off and pop into bed. 
 It's because you're worn out." 
 
 Elsie, saying no more, undressed quickly and lay 
 down. Her sister was soon asleep on the other bed, 
 breathing quietly, while she remained awake with all 
 sorts of half-formulated thoughts seething in her mind. 
 However she tried to keep them back, they would 
 crowd up through the surface, hurting her, mocking 
 at all she held sacred. At first she prayed in bed : "O 
 God, help me not to think things like this! Help me 
 not to think things like this!" But that made no dif- 
 ference at all and she slipped out of bed to kneel 
 shivering on the floor : a poor little figure in the dawn, 
 confronted by the most terrible problem this age has 
 had to solve. And she prayed harder than she ever had 
 done in her life until her head began to swim and she 
 had to get up from her knees. Still it was no use. It 
 was like praying into a wall of cotton wool. So she 
 went back to bed again and lay awake staring into the 
 grey twilight : hoping for nothing ; expecting nothing. 
 
 And after quite a long while she began as Mrs. 
 Simpson had once done to experience a very faint 
 sense of light and calm spreading over the turmoil of 
 her soul. It deepened. She was conscious of the 
 response while scarcely aware that it had come. 
 
 Soon she fell asleep, having passed through one of 
 the greatest experiences of the human soul. Only 
 when she woke in the morning she remembered noth- 
 ing of it. The knowledge was stored deep down in 
 her girl's memory until she should call upon it. 
 
 Morning rose grey and chill at this time of the year,
 
 SACRIFICE 227 
 
 and the Simpsons were breakfasting to the accustomed 
 sounds of Flodmouth . . . the Zum! Zum! Swish! 
 Ting ! Ting ! all merged together, and the high O-oh ! 
 of the engine over the wall. Now came a nearer 
 sound, a motif making itself clear above the rest : the 
 heavy rumble of a removal van going past the window 
 and the raucous coughing of the man who accom- 
 panied it. 
 
 Mr. Simpson glanced out through the window, con- 
 tinuing to eat hurriedly 
 
 "Who's that removing?" 
 
 "Deane. He's going to a terrace house somewhere : 
 they can't live here with food so dear." 
 
 As the Simpsons thought of the little clerk at the 
 railway end of the Avenue a shadow seemed to falj 
 across their own table a shadow of what was coming ; 
 but they only said 
 
 "Three houses changed hands on one side this 
 autumn." 
 
 "Yes. The doctor's house at the corner is to let, 
 too; there's no telling when he'll come back, and he 
 can't get a locum."" 
 
 "And Miss Felling has given notice, of course. She 
 wants a smaller house." 
 
 "She'll feel it after all these years." 
 
 But none of the Simpsons mentioned the fact thai 
 they also had given notice and would be leaving next 
 Lady Day: the girls because they knew vaguely that 
 Mr. Simpson in some mysterious way felt himself to 
 blame for bringing his family down to a smaller house 
 in a back street, even though he knew he was not to 
 blame at all; and the parents because they nervously 
 avoided at that hour of the morning a subject which
 
 228 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 was painful to both of them. For it was not, to them, 
 just leaving a house in Chestnut Avenue for a smaller 
 one elsewhere it was leaving the material fabric on 
 which their lives had been built, for something new 
 and cold, un warmed by the pleasant habit of years. 
 
 "The Avenue will soon seem quite different," said 
 Barbara. 
 
 "Yes. Pass the bread, please." 
 
 And a picture that was not so much a picture as a 
 vague inner vision already formed itself with slight 
 differences in each mind; a vision of this little com- 
 pany of the Silent Legion disbanding as silently, to 
 take their stand once more in a strange place with no 
 memories to keep them warm. The winds of life blew 
 pretty shrewdly across poor shabby Mr. Deane as he 
 hurried past the Simpsons' that foggy morning, and 
 he had the indescribable ragged- feathered and forlorn 
 look of a bird turned out of the nest, though he was 
 as tidy and neatly brushed as usual. But all the same 
 though he did not dream of such a thing he was 
 really carrying the banner down the Avenue for the 
 last time, with the Flodmouth noises playing him out 
 just like any other soldier of England. The inscrip- 
 tion : "Bear and Say Nothing," in all its dull, undra- 
 matic commonplaceness could be read plainly enough 
 by the eye of the soul as he turned the corner. 
 
 Mrs. Simpson unconsciously did so see it. 
 
 "We must go and call on Mrs. Deane as soon as 
 they are settled," she said. 
 
 "You never called when they were in the Avenue," 
 said Barbara. "Mrs. Deane is a tiresome, gossiping 
 little woman." 
 
 "Oh, I think we'll go," was all Mrs. Simpson said.
 
 SACRIFICE 229 
 
 "Very decent chap Deane," said Mr. Simpson 
 rising; for he also though even more unconsciously 
 than his wife had seen the banner go past. "Well! 
 Time I was off!" 
 
 Elsie took in the letters from the postman and ran 
 upstairs to her bedroom. When the door was shut she 
 opened a long envelope with fingers that trembled; 
 then her face went very pale and her eyes shone like 
 stars under her untidy mop of dark hair. On the 
 flimsy paper were printed four verses of four lines 
 each nothing more than that to cause such a look of 
 rapt exultation. And yet after all it was something 
 more; it was a document making Elsie Simpson free 
 of that brotherhood who have loved and rejoiced and 
 suffered for the written word throughout the ages. 
 She was like an initiate just received into some great 
 mystery as she stood staring out of the window at a 
 grey cat on the sparsely leaved branches of the plane- 
 tree. One part of her longed to run downstairs shout- 
 ing out: "Mother ! I'm an Author ! They've accepted 
 my verses! I've got a real proof to correct! I'm an 
 Author!" 
 
 But some other feeling, stronger even than that, 
 forbade her to tell them. The sort of wild secretive- 
 ness which belongs to the time when real literary talent 
 is growing in the mind of such a girl as Elsie kept her 
 fast by the window with her back to the room even 
 when Barbara entered. At last she had to turn round, 
 but it was with a face so startlingly pale and eyes so 
 bright that her sister dropped the pillow and exclaimed, 
 startled 
 
 "Elsie! Whatever's the matter?"
 
 23Q THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "Nothing!" 
 
 She moved to her own bed and began to make it, 
 while Barbara hastened to help her: as they straight- 
 ened the sheets, Barbara said 
 
 "Is your back hurting?" 
 
 "No. I wish to goodness you'd leave my back 
 alone." 
 
 "Oh, all right; I only wanted to get you something 
 for it. You needn't be so snappy." 
 
 "I " began Elsie ; then to Barbara's surprise she 
 
 burst out crying. "Oh, Barbie, I didn't mean to be 
 horrid . . . only only The London Gazette has taken 
 my piece of poetry and they're paying me t-ten and six- 
 pence for it." 
 
 "Why, Elsie our little old Elsie!" cried Barbara, 
 running round the bed. "Oh! Mother always said 
 you would do something, some day!" 
 
 As the sisters hugged each other, with the clatter of 
 the milk-cart coming in through the open window, they 
 saw a grotesquely impossible picture of an author's 
 career: but even as they drew apart, the emotional 
 moment ended, and Elsie shamefacedly "put the lid 
 on such slopping over," as she mentally expressed it, 
 with a terse remark about clean toilet covers. 
 
 "But I must talk about it," urged Barbara. "Oh, 
 Elsie, I'm so pleased, I don't know what to do. Fancy, 
 when your first novel comes out and we see it on the 
 Library shelves when we go to change a book !" 
 
 The genuine joy in Barbara's tone so touched Elsie 
 and she said abruptly, holding out the proof : "Here, 
 you can read it! But don't say anything. I don't 
 want to hear anything about it." 
 
 She believed herself to be speaking truth, though all
 
 SACRIFICE 231 
 
 the while she was consumed by the desire for praise 
 or blame which is the oil which makes genius burn 
 though genius often denies this and as she unneces- 
 sarily beat a pillow she stole an eager look at Barbara's 
 downbent face. 
 
 "It's lovely," said Barbara at last, looking up. 
 "Where did you get your ideas from a child like 
 you? It's simply wonderful." She paused. "Why, 
 I've felt just like that myself, and I never put it into 
 words." 
 
 Elsie took a deep delicious breath, drinking in her 
 first draught of the elixir which makes all toil and bit- 
 terness worth while the joy of self-expression when 
 it goes home to another human soul. But she only 
 said casually 
 
 "Oh, it came into my head one night, so I put it 
 down and sent it to the newspaper. I didn't think it 
 was any good after I'd got it posted." 
 
 That was all she had to say about the triumph and 
 ecstasy of creation the reaction afterwards when the 
 words seem without meaning and void the new sur- 
 prise of finding them good after all. But the joy of 
 this morning when she stared white-faced at the cat 
 in the plane-tree, she could never try to describe. 
 
 When Mrs. Simpson was told about it, she flushed 
 rosy like a girl in her happy pride, though beneath 
 her joy the delicate tentacles of her soul were already 
 conscious of a little cold wind blowing. She already 
 shared this experience with the wistful, beautiful type 
 of all such mothers : the one who came up every year 
 to the Temple, bringing a garment she had sewn dur- 
 ing twelve long months of parting.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 A JOURNEY'S END 
 
 AT midday the sun came through the mist and 
 shone pleasantly on the narrow street where Mr. 
 Simpson stepped cork-like among his peers, past many 
 shops that had been there ever since he could remem- 
 ber. At the end of the street, facing him, was a tall 
 pillar bearing the statue of an Apostle of Freedom 
 which over-topped the bridge and the dock offices, and 
 shot up straight into a greyish sky permeated with 
 soft light. Mr. Simpson felt heartened at the sight 
 of it somehow, for it had represented to him since he 
 was a little boy what he now understood England to 
 be fighting for. 
 
 As he walked along he nodded to this person and 
 lifted his hat to the other, cracking jokes when he 
 paused for a moment, with waistcoat advanced and 
 head a little on one side, as usual. "Heard about our 
 new typist? Fluffy; silk stockings! And, 'Oh, Mr. 
 Simpson, I'm so bothered ten per cent. how much is 
 that a year?' But an uncommon nice-looking little 
 girl, I must say . . ." 
 
 And Barbara, just behind, emerging unseen from 
 the shop where her grandmother's wedding dress had 
 been bought, felt an utter sense of surprise and almost 
 outrage that her father could speak in that tone of 
 
 232
 
 A JOURNEY'S END 233 
 
 any little girl he being, of course, to her, not a man, 
 but a father; a distinction clear enough to anybody 
 like Barbara. 
 
 Then her father's friend glimpsed her over his 
 shoulder and said jauntily 
 
 "Oh! Good-morning, Miss Simpson. Lovely day 
 for the time of year." 
 
 But Barbara responded with a slight distance in her 
 tone she somehow blamed this friend for her parent's 
 lapse and the man passed on. 
 
 "Well, Barbara, been buying the shop? I saw you 
 through an office window going in an hour ago," said 
 Mr. Simpson, unconscious of offence. 
 
 "I've just been getting a few things," said Barbara. 
 Then she blushed, and tinglingly aware of this she 
 flushed deeper and deeper until the crimson flood 
 invaded her neck and reached her hair. "Everything 
 is awfully dear," she added, with a nervous laugh, 
 looking away from her father. 
 
 He saw her discomfort and it touched him acutely, 
 for he imagined that she thought he blamed her poor 
 child for spending her bit of money there. His own 
 face grew rather red as he held out the shilling he had 
 intended to spend on his lunch. 
 
 "Here, get yourself a few goodies on the way home, 
 lass !" the dialect put on to conceal his emotion after 
 a Flodmouth fashion. 
 
 "No! No!" But he slipped the shilling into her 
 pocket and she turned and walked with him, though 
 rather silently. They approached the tall monument, 
 and Mr. Simpson looked and seemed, then, almost 
 exactly as he had done five years ago. Almost ! The 
 difference was so subtle as to be practically invisible,
 
 234 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 and yet it affected all he said and thought and did 
 it was indeed tremendous. For he was a man without 
 a dream. In boyhood he had meant to do all sorts of 
 wonderful things, but after Jim began to grow up 
 he stopped dreaming for himself and transferred the 
 dream to his boy. Jim was going to make all he had 
 hoped for of life come true. Now that was over; 
 and the loss affected every sense and every member, 
 yet no one could detect where the change was, not 
 even Mr. Simpson himself. 
 
 He and Barbara met several Flodmouth men who 
 had also lost only sons, and they were just like him; 
 they, too, were men walking about without a dream. 
 
 Barbara crossed the bridge in silence, then broke 
 through her father's anecdote of a soldier and an 
 inquisitive lady to say abruptly : "I had a letter from 
 Julian this morning." 
 
 "Julian !" For the moment Mr. Simpson, engrossed 
 in his tale, failed to remember who Julian was. "Oh, 
 Brooke, you mean. Of course." 
 
 "He's in England!" 
 
 "England!" 
 
 Mr. Simpson had a sudden memory of that conver- 
 sation with Mrs. Simpson, and said hastily: "I hope 
 the poor fellow is not badly wounded?" 
 
 "Not wounded at all," said Barbara; and Mr. 
 Simpson knew he ought not to have felt disappointed ; 
 so it was to put himself right with himself that he 
 jerked out heartily 
 
 "We shall be seeing him soon now eh, Barbara? 
 That'll be something like; eh?" 
 
 "Not yet," said Barbara, smiling gratefully. 
 "Julian is at a hospital in Cheltenham. His old wound
 
 A JOURNEY'S END 235 
 
 in the arm has broken out again and he has been 
 suffering from neuritis as well." 
 
 "That's bad." 
 
 "Yes." Barbara paused. "Father, I want to go 
 and see him." 
 
 "Oh!" Mr. Simpson looked sharp round at her. 
 "What does your Mother say?" 
 
 "I don't think she wants me to go," admitted 
 Barbara reluctantly. 
 
 "Well, I must say I'm of the same opinion myself, 
 Barbara," answered Mr. Simpson. "You see, I can't 
 go with you I can't get off from the office." 
 
 "They might let you off as a great favour. It's not 
 as if you were an ordinary clerk, Father; you were in 
 business yourself before, and that must make a 
 difference." 
 
 "It's just why I can't possibly ask," said Mr. 
 Simpson. 
 
 And Barbara, not so dense but that she caught a 
 glimmering of what he meant, was fain to respond 
 reluctantly 
 
 "Well if you feel like that " Then she 
 
 added : "But there's no earthly reason why I shouldn't 
 go alone. We don't live in the days when girls had to 
 have somebody tacked on to them wherever they went 
 for fear they should get 'up to' something." She 
 raised her head proudly : "I'm to be trusted." 
 
 "I know you are. Still, we must think of appear- 
 ances, you know." Thus Mr. Simpson clucked on the 
 edge of the pond, never having quite moulted his 
 Mid-Victorian feathers. "I really don't think you 
 ought to go alone, Barbara." Then he saw his pretty
 
 236 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 girl look unhappy, and he so hated to see it that he 
 concluded weakly: "Perhaps Elsie " 
 
 But Barbara did not want Elsie. 
 
 She'd only get knocked up with the long journey. 
 You know that, Father; besides, think of the awful 
 expense !" 
 
 "Yes," agreed Mr. Simpson, seizing on this idea 
 with avidity. "Of course, now the fares are raised 
 it will be quite an expensive journey! I don't see how 
 I am to find the money." 
 
 "You won't have to," said Barbara. "I went to 
 the Savings Bank and took out all my birthday and 
 Christmas money I had in there. It was quite a lot 
 over twenty pounds." 
 
 "I'm sorry you did that," said Mr. Simpson. "You 
 had no need to do that. If your Mother and I had 
 agreed to let you go, we should have found the money 
 somehow. I wish you hadn't done that." As he spoke 
 they were passing down a street not far from the 
 Savings Bank, and he added gravely, but kindly : 
 "Come with me now and put it back again, Barbara. 
 You may want your little nest-egg far more than you 
 do now." 
 
 But Barbara stood still a moment and let the people 
 at that busy corner surge round about her unheeded. 
 
 "No, Father," she said, looking him straight in the 
 face. "As long as I live, I can't want it for anything 
 more than I do for this. I must go. I must. You 
 don't know. You can't understand." Her lips trem- 
 bled. "I want to see him." 
 
 "Then where do you imagine you are going to 
 stay?" he said. "Do you contemplate going to the 
 hotel by yourself?"
 
 A JOURNEY'S END 237 
 
 "I shouldn't mind that !" flung out Barbara. "But 
 as it happens I have the address of a sort of boarding- 
 house where Miss Felling stays sometimes, and I have 
 wired to ask if they can take me in." She looked 
 round and her defiant mood immediately turned into 
 rather shaky laughter. "Oh, you dear old Dad! For 
 goodness' sake, don't look like that! There's simply 
 not a soul at that boarding-house under sixty, I 
 believe." 
 
 "Wired!" gasped Mr. Simpson. "You've actually 
 wired without consulting anybody !" 
 
 "I told Mother," said Barbara. 
 
 "Told Mother!" repeated Mr. Simpson. "So this 
 is what we get for years of devotion, care and the 
 hundreds we have spent on your schooling told 
 Mother !" And he made a noise between a snort and 
 a grunt, being all the more fierce and blustering because 
 he felt he was just going to give in. "Why can't you 
 wait till Brooke comes here? It's just a fancy you've 
 got." 
 
 Barbara gave him a side look, very odd and in- 
 scrutable, full of the circuitous woman's wisdom which 
 is born in the female child and no man can quite under- 
 stand. But she hid her deep motive and let it go as 
 a whim, like millions before her. 
 
 "You can't help having fancies. I feel I must go 
 to him now he is in England." 
 
 "Well, if you will, you will, I suppose," sighed Mr. 
 Simpson ; but a stirring of the jealousy which a father 
 feels in hearing his girl speak of her lover made him 
 add testily 
 
 "Go, then, if you are so set on it! Though I must 
 say I can't see anything so wonderful about the fel-
 
 238 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 low." Then a sense of justice forced him to add: 
 "Not that I know anything against him on the 
 contrary." 
 
 Barbara slipped her hand through her father's arm 
 and squeezed it tenderly. 
 
 "Thank you, Dad." And she added, smiling: "/ 
 know what you have against Julian. You wanted me 
 to marry a sort of sainted millionaire with a good 
 temper and plenty of pleasant relations." 
 
 "Nonsense !" Mr. Simpson also smiled, reluctantly. 
 "I'm only thinking about your happiness, my girl; 
 you know that." 
 
 And he thought he spoke the truth, but it was only 
 a half truth; for he desired also, like most fathers, 
 to be proud of his daughter's marriage, just as he had 
 hoped to be proud of his son's career. 
 
 When Barbara reached home she found the cold 
 lunch of which the female members were partaking 
 in Mr. Simpson's absence already on the table. Mrs. 
 Simpson looked up from cutting the bread with her 
 pretty, anxious smile 
 
 "Well, dear? Got the margarine?" 
 
 "Oh, I forgot! I'm so sorry," said Barbara. 
 
 Then Elsie entered, carrying a large cardboard 
 dress-box which she placed on the sofa. 
 
 "This has just come from Harrison's: marked 
 'Urgent.' Whatever have you been getting, Barbara?" 
 
 Barbara frowned and flushed deeply again as she 
 had done when she came out of the shop and encoun- 
 tered her father, but she walked straight to the box, 
 took up a dinner knife and cut the string. 
 
 "There!" she said, lifting out a pretty, neat coat and
 
 A JOURNEY'S END 239 
 
 skirt of dark blue and a blouse of pale apricot colour. 
 "That's what I've got; they're to go to Cheltenham 
 in." 
 
 "My dear ! You must have spent nearly ten pounds !" 
 exclaimed Mrs. Simpson. 
 
 "I did, Mother; but it was my own money. I had 
 a right to spend it as I liked," said Barbara, putting 
 the things down on the sofa end and moving to her 
 seat at table. "I inquired about the train, too ; it leaves 
 at nine." 
 
 "Then you're really going?" said Elsie, wide-eyed 
 and rather subdued. "I thought you were just kid- 
 ding before you went out." 
 
 "Oh, did you? Salt, please." 
 
 And the little meal was finished almost in silence s 
 both Barbara and Mrs. Simpson feeling as if every 
 mouthful were mixed with sand; but they managed 
 to swallow what was on their plates and at last it was 
 time to clear the table. 
 
 "You can go and rest, Elsie. I will help Barbara 
 to wash up," said Mrs. Simpson in a low tone; and 
 Elsie went. 
 
 For a moment or two Mrs. Simpson stood outside 
 the kitchen door listening to Barbara clattering the 
 plates inside. It was an immense effort to her to force 
 herself into her daughter's confidence, but she had to 
 do it. As she went in Barbara looked round from the 
 sink without smiling. 
 
 "Why aren't you lying down?" she said curtly. 
 
 "Barbara, what does this all mean?" said Mrs. 
 Simpson. 
 
 "You know. It means I'm going to see Julian," 
 said Barbara, continuing to clatter plates.
 
 24Q THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 But even in face of that Mrs. Simpson forced her- 
 self to go on. She was not in the least afraid of 
 Barbara, but she was so terribly afraid of intruding. 
 All the same she made herself say: "Those new 
 clothes ! You're you're not thinking of getting mar- 
 ried without telling us, Barbara?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "You'll promise me not to do that, Barbara?" 
 
 There was no reply. Barbara made a noise with a 
 pile of dry crockery and carried it into the pantry. 
 Mrs. Simpson followed. It was an extraordinary 
 reversal of any scene that could have taken place be- 
 tween Mrs. Simpson and her mother. 
 
 "Barbara, don't you hear me?" 
 
 "I'm not going to make any promises. I told you 
 I had no intention of marrying without your knowl- 
 edge. I do wish you wouldn't bother me so." 
 
 "You are my daughter. I must try to take care of 
 you." 
 
 "It's very good of you, Mother, but I am quite well 
 able to take care of myself," said Barbara; then she 
 took up a basin of refuse and went out of the back 
 door into the garden. 
 
 Mrs. Simpson's lip trembled, but she controlled her- 
 self. So this was the reality of the scene she had so 
 often pictured when she and Barbara should talk 
 together about a wedding. Slowly, heavily, she went 
 to her sofa and lay down. 
 
 In the evening when she and Mr. Simpson were 
 alone together, after the girls had gone to bed, she told 
 him what had happened. 
 
 "I can't make Barbara out," he said. "That man
 
 A JOURNEY'S END 241 
 
 seems to have quite changed her nature. She seems 
 to care about nothing and nobody so long as she can 
 get to him." 
 
 "Yes I must say I almost wondered a little when 
 she was so ready to go to Scarcliffe," hesitated Mrs. 
 Simpson. "I should have made her go in any case, 
 of course, but I thought she would take a little per- 
 suading." 
 
 "Dear me! I never thought of that," said Mr. 
 Simpson. "You may bet your life that was at the 
 bottom of it. Otherwise she would have insisted on 
 your going with Elsie. You wanted the change more 
 than she did." He rattled his paper impatiently. 
 "The chap seems to have bewitched her. I suppose 
 it's no use forbidding her to go to Cheltenham." 
 
 Mrs. Simpson shook her head. 
 
 "She would go all the same and with a bitter feel- 
 ing towards us that might drive her into any folly." 
 There was a pause, some ashes dropped on the hearth ; 
 then Mrs. Simpson roused herself to comfort her hus- 
 band. "I wouldn't worry too much, Sam. Barbara 
 is to be trusted." 
 
 "But she's so altered. I never thought our girl could 
 get like this, Harriet," said poor Mr. Simpson. "She 
 doesn't seem to care tuppence about us after all the 
 love and care we've given her." 
 
 "No, no, Sam. It isn't that." And a very sweet 
 smile lit up Mrs. Simpson's tired face. "She'll come 
 back to us : it's only for the time being. I've known 
 other girls just the same and they all came back in 
 the end." 
 
 "Well, I never thought Barbara would be like that, 
 though."
 
 242 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 Neither did Mrs. Simpson, really: for she had 
 cherished unconsciously the beautiful belief of all 
 mothers that their children will be the chosen ones who 
 do not hurt their parents; but she ranged herself be- 
 side her daughter and said cheerfully enough : "After 
 ; all, it might have been much worse. At least Julian 
 is a gentleman and possessed of some little private 
 means. It may be a very happy marriage." 
 
 "I wish to goodness she'd taken Frank Garret," 
 muttered Mr. Simpson, "not that I care much about 
 him, personally, only I think she would have had a 
 greater chance of happiness." 
 
 "Well, there it is!" said Mrs. Simpson, but after 
 a minute or two she added vehemently: "And yet 
 people laugh at love when it's the thing that shapes 
 more lives than anything else in the world !" 
 
 "Yes." For a minute or two Mr. Simpson also 
 brooded. But soon he bestirred himself to say, with 
 a chuckle that had no heart in it: "One of the key 
 trades since the beginning and always will be, Amen; 
 eh, Harriet?" 
 
 So they turned back the hearth-rug and lit a night- 
 light on the mantelpiece in case of an alarm and went 
 to bed. 
 
 When the train was once really off, and Barbara 
 saw the familiar mud-banks running along past her 
 carriage windows, she experienced a sense of relief 
 which entirely ousted any thought of regret for those 
 she was leaving behind. The newspaper which Mr. 
 Simpson had given her lay unread on her knee while 
 she sat back luxuriating in a cessation of the strain
 
 A JOURNEY'S END 243 
 
 under which she had lived since receiving Brooke's 
 letter on the previous morning. 
 
 Some alteration of the train service obliged her to 
 go round by Leeds, and she spent two hours in a place, 
 half buffet, half waiting-room, with people constantly 
 coming and going, and an odd gloom of unreality 
 pervading everything as if it were a waiting-room 
 in a rather unpleasant dream. By degrees, however, 
 one other passenger emerged from the general unsub- 
 stantiality, and Barbara noticed a female in a black 
 dress sitting on the other side of the fireplace, who 
 was evidently waiting for the same train as herself; 
 and who kept taking some sort of meat lozenge from a 
 small tin box, sucking it earnestly, and then abstract- 
 ing another so as to be ready the moment the last was 
 eaten. Her hair was yellow and her clothes were a 
 travesty of extreme youthful fashion, though she must 
 have been over forty. Barbara's faint interest deep- 
 ened into a light contempt as she watched her fellow 
 passenger alternately patting her hair, arranging her 
 hat and sucking. At last the woman leaned forward 
 and said 
 
 "Tiresome having to wait so long here. Won't you 
 take a beef lozenge? I find I must keep myself up." 
 
 "No, thank you," said Barbara. 
 
 "You're on your way to Cheltenham, no doubt? 
 I was going to see my brother there, but I received 
 news this morning that he had died in hospital. We 
 were twins and had always lived together. He was a 
 vegetarian and wore hygienic clothing before he joined 
 up, but we never allowed divergence of views to make 
 any difference. We were very happy together." She 
 wiped her eyes. "I don't think I can go to the
 
 244 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 Literary Lectures alone this winter. The tickets for 
 the course came just before I started." She looked 
 at Barbara, suddenly frightened. "I don't know what 
 I'm going to do. I've nobody else." 
 
 Barbara could say nothing for the catch in her 
 throat and the little lady went on almost immediately : 
 "That's why I'm eating these lozenges. I am very 
 anxious to keep up. I know he would like me to keep 
 up. He did so dislike crying and that sort of thing." 
 She paused and held out the tin box: "Won't you 
 have one?" 
 
 As Barbara took a lozenge and held it in her hand, 
 a deep crimson surged over face and neck. She was 
 suddenly seized with a violent, unreasoning horror of 
 war such as many women have felt during the past 
 three years. War was an evil thing. Whatever 
 glorious deeds and thoughts came too, it was evil. 
 
 Then she heard the woman saying: "Here is our 
 train," and they went to it. There was no chance for 
 further talk in the crowded railway carriage, and Bar- 
 bara soon began to think of her own affairs as the 
 train rushed along hour after hour through the autumn 
 fields. All the same, beneath her thoughts of that 
 meeting which drew so near now in the same way 
 that the Flodmouth noises and the sound of the waves 
 had accompanied their real meetings was a murmur 
 that she did not notice either; but her soul heard it. 
 
 The Promenade at Cheltenham is a delightful place 
 about tea-time on an early November day, with the 
 sun just setting and the lights all twinkling out An 
 old rook going home often caws with the pleasant 
 quaintness of a dairy-maid going through the city, and
 
 A JOURNEY'S END 24 
 
 the high trees gently let fall their yellow leaves upon 
 the stir of traffic and the constant trip-trip-trip of 
 moving feet on the wide, clean pavement. Then, on 
 the further side of the road are fine shops having in 
 them all manner of gay things to wear, and florists 
 with great vases of flowers, and splendid booksellers; 
 while to the left of the noble pathway under the high 
 trees are little narrow gardens set with statues and 
 fountains, and beyond them again are seen the tall 
 straight-fronted houses set in a row with old-fashioned 
 primness and quietude against the advancing evening. 
 
 As Barbara came down the steps of one of these 
 houses she received an impression of something or- 
 dered and old and leisurely which had adapted itself 
 in the most beautiful way to the needs of the passing 
 hour. It was so lovely and yet so fitting and English, 
 down to the very women who walked along the pave- 
 ments with their sophisticated charm and pretty faded 
 faces women who had been bleached under Indian 
 suns or had grown worn-looking with following the 
 drum to palmy, forgotten places. And that fresh youth 
 might be there too, a string of blue-clad girls came 
 along with eyes bright and cheeks all rosy in the cold. 
 
 For a little while Barbara forgot the worry and sad- 
 ness which had preceded her journey and only felt 
 she was going to meet her lover. It seemed right that 
 he should come towards her on that broad walk in his 
 blue hospital uniform, just as she had first seen him. 
 She knew a moment of perfect happiness. 
 
 "I was so sorry I couldn't get to the train to meet 
 you," he said. 
 
 And yet he said a thousand other things; the still, 
 dampish air that was fragrant of fallen leaves vibrated
 
 246 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 between them with the lovely things they were saying 
 to each other. 
 
 "You told me you might not be able to meet me. I 
 found the boarding-house all right. It's just over 
 there," said Barbara. 
 
 "I never thought you'd really come. Oh, Barbara, 
 I can scarcely believe it! I can scarcely believe it 
 yet!" 
 
 Then they noticed a smile a very kind little smile 
 on the face of a woman passing; and they suddenly 
 realised they were still holding hands. 
 
 "Let us go and have some tea," he' said. "There's 
 u capital place just across the way. I say; isn't this 
 .glorious ?" 
 
 "Oh, Julian; it seems too good to be true." 
 
 So they went across the road, he with his hand in 
 her arm to show all the world she was his, and she 
 leaning a little towards him to show all the world he 
 was hers. Then they reached the clean pavement that 
 sounded so pleasantly under Barbara's tapping heels, 
 and followed a fat lady into the big confectioner's shop 
 at the corner. 
 
 The ground floor covered with little tables was 
 almost full, but they found a place in an alcove and 
 looked round from that harbourage on piles of cakes, 
 and announcements about Christmas parcels, and on 
 the faces of people who were cheerful for the sake of 
 others if they could not be so for themselves. 
 
 "Care !" said Barbara, taking an excuse for touching 
 her lover. "I see your poor arm is in a sling; you 
 must not let people brush against it." And he was so 
 thrilled by her touch that he could scarcely answer her 
 for the moment.
 
 A JOURNEY'S END 247 
 
 They praised the tea never tasted such excellent 
 tea. They praised the cake no one would think it 
 was war-time. They even praised the limitation of 
 food, and said how much better many people would 
 be in consequence. In the end they went so far as 
 to praise an elderly gentleman near who kept saying 
 over and over again: "I call this a damn bad tea. 
 Martha, don't } r ou hear me? I call this a damn bad 
 tea," and thought that he was a most amusing old 
 person. In fact, the shop, Cheltenham, the universe 
 was on that November afternoon set out for their 
 enjoying. 
 
 "I can't understand how you ever got your people 
 to let you come off like this all by yourself," said 
 Brooke suddenly, when they were half way through 
 their meal. 
 
 "Oh, I managed it all right," said Barbara, crum- 
 bling her cake and glancing bright-eyed about her. 
 "But we won't talk about things like that just yet, 
 
 Julian. Let's simply be jolly. I've done " She 
 
 was sombre for a second : "I've done enough thinking 
 and worrying lately." 
 
 "Poor little girl !" He touched her hand under the 
 table her broad-palmed, slender-fingered hand that 
 was now slightly roughened and reddened with work 
 and his touch ran through her veins like fire; she 
 thought passionately that she would recognise that 
 touch if she were blind if she were dead. Her face 
 was white and her blue eyes looked black under the 
 shadow of her hat as she whispered 
 
 "Oh, I've wanted you so, Julian! I've wanted you 
 so dreadfully!" 
 
 "And me what about me, Barbara?"
 
 248 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 He held her hand so tightly that it hurt, but the 
 pain only added to her joy she liked him to hurt her. 
 The little pain seemed to prick home the rapture of 
 their secret contact amid this crowd of people. 
 
 "Did you think of me a lot when you were out 
 there? Even when you went into action?" 
 
 "I never thought of you and I always did; I never 
 had to think of you. You were always there in my 
 mind. But when a man goes into action he doesn't 
 think about anything at least I didn't he just feels 
 ready " 
 
 "Ready for what?" 
 
 Barbara leant towards him, lips parted, eyes darkly 
 dilated, and the sight of her thus made him pull up 
 short. 
 
 "Oh, ready for off," he said. "Here, have another 
 cake?" And he withdrew his hand to pass the plate. 
 
 She drew a long breath and sat straighter, feeling 
 a little chilled and rebuffed. 
 
 "I've finished, thank you," she said. "Shall we be 
 going?" 
 
 She helped him carefully into his overcoat which 
 hung loose over his damaged arm and covered the blue 
 uniform. It was already almost dark when they came 
 out, and stars were beginning to shine here and there 
 in the sapphire sky over the tall trees on the other 
 side of the wide road. As they felt the fresh air in 
 their faces the mood of the last few minutes cleared 
 away, and they felt lightly joyful once more in each 
 other's company. 
 
 "I say! How pretty the shops look, Julian!" 
 
 "Yes. There's a jeweller's here I want you to see." 
 
 "What for?"
 
 A JOURNEY'S END 249 
 
 He slipped his right arm into hers and laughed in 
 her upturned face. 
 
 "You know, you little humbug! By the way, 
 where have you got the two bits of that wedding-ring 
 I gave you?" 
 
 "I have them in my purse. I wanted to wear them 
 round my neck, as I said; but I couldn't, because of 
 Elsie." 
 
 "Elsie! What's Elsie to do with it?" 
 
 "We share a room together. She'd see." 
 
 "Well!" He still kept her arm, but she felt him 
 stiffen. "You're not ashamed of it, are you?" 
 
 "Of course not." She clung tighter. "You know 
 I'm not. Only Elsie makes such fun ... I didn't want 
 any one to . . ." She paused and said in a very low 
 tone: "It it was so awfully private, Julian! So 
 just between you and me ... I didn't like . . ." 
 
 "No, no ! I see. I'm glad you didn't." 
 
 And in the faint light from the shop window she 
 saw how his seamed and vivid face glowed with pale 
 adoration of her girl's reticence and sweetness. His 
 dark eyes burnt into hers as he drew her away from 
 the window. 
 
 "Come inside, dear. I'm going to choose you 
 another." 
 
 She held back. He was surprised and ^ .if mad- 
 dened by her sudden oncomings and withdrawals, and 
 yet he was sure she was no coquette; they were abso- 
 lutely the reflection of her feeling they mirrored 
 something deep and hidden in her girl's heart that a 
 man perhaps could not understand. 
 
 "Don't you want another ring from me, Barbara?" 
 he said gently. "I mean an engagement ring, of course.
 
 25Q THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 We will have the broken wedding-ring put together 
 again somehow and get married with that; I couldn't 
 like any other so well." 
 
 He was groping trying to find out what she wanted 
 what she had in her mind. 
 
 "I'm I'm tired!" she said with a little half-sob. 
 "I'd rather not choose one to-night, Julian." 
 
 "Why," he gave in at once, "what a brute I am! 
 I ought to have remembered after all that long jour- 
 ney and the fuss and bother of getting off. . . . And I 
 dare say you didn't sleep much last night. Poor little 
 Barbara! Poor little Barbara! You'll think I shall 
 make a nice husband. I'll just take you to your board- 
 ing-house and go back to the hospital. It's time I 
 went in, anyway." 
 
 They crossed the road to the beautiful broad walk 
 under the high trees, and so many leaves had fallen 
 that the dark sky gleamed through, lighted by the 
 stars. 
 
 "All right now?" he whispered. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 They walked in silence, filled with the joy of being 
 together everything else seemed to have faded out 
 of their lives. Then he took her to her boarding-house 
 and their parting was witnessed by a thin lady usher-- 
 ing out a female guest
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 CHELTENHAM 
 
 NEXT morning Barbara came downstairs some- 
 what early to breakfast and noticed through the 
 open doorway of the dining-room that the same thin 
 lady was before her. She paused a moment before 
 entering, and her shoes were noiseless, so she saw her 
 fellow-boarder hastily changing one pat of butter for 
 another which looked larger and more appetising. 
 
 "Oh!" said the lady, caught pat on knife half-way 
 across the room, and speaking almost gushingly to 
 conceal the doubtful situation. "Lovely morning, isn't 
 it? I am starting breakfast early as I have to be at 
 the hospital as soon as possible. Life is such a rush 
 now-a-days, is it not?" 
 
 And she sat down drumming with her fingers on the 
 table, eager to give the impression that her duties of 
 washing up crockery for a few hours two days a week 
 kept her in a stress and strain which needed if any- 
 thing were thought by Barbara the support of some- 
 body else's margarine. 
 
 But though neither she nor Barbara saw it, she was 
 not a thin, nervous and rather unoccupied lady of the 
 middle-class; she was a sign of something rather stu- 
 pendous : a sign that the middle-class Englishwoman is 
 no longer ashamed of work; she is ashamed of idle- 
 ness. 
 
 251
 
 252 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 Later in tKe day, Barbara sat on a seat just beyond 
 the quaint and narrow gardens which divided the paved 
 way before the boarding-house from the walk under 
 the trees. A little marble fountain was playing near 
 at hand, and the leaves fell softly, gently, every now 
 and then; resting like flakes of gold on the water. A 
 leisured traffic passed up and down on the main road, 
 not enough to trouble an onlooker, and yet giving a 
 sense of movement and life. On the broad pavement 
 across the road, Barbara could see through this still, 
 sunnily-misty air, the same sort of women as walked 
 there the evening before wearing even the dowdiest, 
 shabbiest clothes with an air which marked them out 
 as not provincial. They had been out into the world, 
 "for to see and to admire," and though they might 
 have settled down to a very narrow and bickering old 
 age here, they bore the impress of where they had 
 wandered in the first flush of youth. Old men moved 
 among them, stopping to speak with a dim reflection 
 of past gallantry, and a few lads on leave or in hospital 
 went along either alone or in company: but whoever 
 it was, they nearly all looked cheerily out at life, obey- 
 ing the unwritten order that no British gentleman-in- 
 arms should pull a long face. 
 
 Barbara was just beginning to feel cold in spite of 
 the pale sunshine which lay so beautifully on the stained 
 marble (stained greyish, and not golden, as it would 
 have been out of England) and upon the delicate 
 spirals of water and the yellow leaves floating in the 
 basin. So she rose and walked slowly up and down 
 for awhile until at last she saw Brooke crossing the 
 road. Instantly, all that had been charming before 
 took on an aching beauty that permeated her soul, more
 
 CHELTENHAM 253 
 
 like something remembered than a scene actually be- 
 fore the eyes. 
 
 He grasped her hand and held it, searching her face, 
 making sure of her presence; it seemed as if life could 
 scarcely hold such happiness. 
 
 "Did you sleep well? Are you comfortable in your 
 boarding-house ?" 
 
 Then they walked on because they were again forced 
 to become aware of passers-by; this time a lady with 
 a little, yapping dog who was eyeing them with fat 
 contempt; it seemed so ridiculous to her because she 
 had long passed by or never known that joy. And at 
 a place where three roads met, they paused a minute 
 and chose a wide one with the great yellowing trees 
 still edging one side and straight-fronted, tall houses 
 on the other. As they passed a seat with two soldiers 
 sitting on it, one man said to the other, in a voice which 
 the lovers could not help hearing 
 
 "Well arm or no arm he's all right !" 
 
 And the lovers smiled into each other's faces, their 
 pleasure in some way made more keen by this expres- 
 sion of good-natured envy. 
 
 "Poor chaps ! I wish they were in the same boat," 
 said Brooke. 
 
 "So do I. Oh, I do wish we could give them some 
 treat. Is there no treat we could give them?" cried 
 Barbara, face sweetly flushed and all alight. 
 
 But Brooke was not so altruistic as all that, and he 
 drew her on, laughing at her tenderly. 
 
 "We can't give them their wives and sweethearts, 
 old girl," he said. "Not that they're all so very keen 
 on having their wives ; you can't blame 'em either." 
 
 "Fancy marriage ever getting to that, Julian!"
 
 254 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 It seemed incredible to Barbara incredible even to 
 Brooke, who had known the reality of marriage, be- 
 cause love is like spring, renewing everything. 
 
 But the word marriage sang in his ears; he put his 
 hand through her arm and murmured passionately: 
 "I've not kissed you properly since you came. I must, 
 somehow. I can make allowances now for the poor 
 beggars you see making such fools of themselves in 
 the streets and parks in an evening. How are they 
 to do differently when they've nowhere else to go ?" 
 
 Barbara trembled before his fierceness and yet it was 
 a joy to her. 
 
 "Don't you want to as well?" he asked, almost 
 roughly. 
 
 "You know I do," she said very low. 
 
 "But it's no use my going to the boarding-house," 
 he stormed. "The place is full of old women going in 
 and out Besides, I must think of you: I shouldn't 
 like any one to have the right to say a word of course." 
 He looked round impatiently at the trees and the 
 straight old houses. "So many places and nowhere 
 for us to go ! I want to talk seriously to you and yet 
 I can't until I've had one good kiss. I'm I'm hunger- 
 ing for it, Barbara." 
 
 His voice caught harshly on that and Barbara's 
 whole soul melted at the sound. Poor boy! Poor 
 boy! 
 
 She, too, looked round a* the straight houses where 
 so many lovers must have sheltered; then her quick 
 wits, quickened by his longing and her own, made her 
 <:ry out suddenly 
 
 "Why. Julian ? I know what we can do. We can
 
 CHELTENHAM 255 
 
 ask to see over an empty house. It says in that one, 
 'Keys next door.' ' 
 
 He hesitated; then his desire to be alone with her 
 where no one could spy on them swamped every other 
 consideration. 
 
 "Very well," he said almost reluctantly. 
 
 So they went up some tall steps and an old servant 
 with a sour face at once gave them the keys. She 
 was embittered by answering the door for people who 
 had looked over the house and gone away without tak- 
 ing it, and she turned a lack-lustre, contemptuous eye 
 on this new pair of fools who would doubtless de- 
 spite their folly be able to observe the extreme incon- 
 venience of the kitchen and basements. 
 
 "Mind you lock all up well after you, and bring back 
 the keys," she said, shutting the door on them. 
 
 They turned the key in the lock of the house and en- 
 tered the front room where the shutters were partly 
 open. The walls were panelled half-way up and the 
 scratched flooring was polished; a mustiness of dis- 
 creet festival hung about the place, from times when 
 the men and women dwelling here lived ordered, nar- 
 row lives, which had yet a fitness and fineness of their 
 own which we are too near to see rightly at pres- 
 ent. . . . 
 
 But now that the time had come, both Barbara and 
 her lover hesitated a moment, speaking of the room 
 and glancing away from each other. Then Barbara 
 suddenly felt herself in his arms, his mouth hard 
 pressed on hers, his heart throbbing so that she could 
 feel it through his thick clothes. The room seemed to 
 swim round her and he felt her sag on his arm. Her
 
 256 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 eyes closed. But he had to satisfy his hunger for 
 her lips. At last he let her go. 
 
 "Oh, Julian!" she murmured faintly. "Your bad 
 arm. You'll have hurt your bad arm." 
 
 And this simple thought for him in the midst of her 
 own passion, which he had felt responsive in her, 
 brought him back to himself. He pushed his hair from 
 his forehead and picked up the cap which had fallen 
 on the floor. Then he went across and opened the 
 window. 
 
 "Come and sit on the window-seat," he said, speak- 
 ing rather jerkily and breathlessly still. "You'll feel 
 the sun there." 
 
 "Yes." She let her hand fall on her lap and the 
 sunshine bathed her in mellow autumn radiance. Out- 
 side the last crimson trailers of the Virginia Creeper 
 hung across the upper panes of the window and cast 
 delicate shadows through the soiled glass 01 to her 
 face. She seemed to him most exquisitely lovely and 
 appealing as she sat there, tired by his passion. He 
 wanted to protect her from that as from everything 
 else during the moment he stood there, looking down 
 at her. Then Barbara looked up at him and smiled. 
 
 "Don't you wish we could have this house for our 
 own, Julian?" 
 
 "Yes." He paused. "No, I don't, I mean." He 
 pulled himself together and smiled back at her, master 
 of his emotions once more. "We're going to have a 
 much nicer house than this, Barbara, out in Canada." 
 
 To his surprise, as he said that, all the glow and 
 softness died out of her face : the little lines round the 
 mouth showed more plainly than he had ever seen them
 
 CHELTENHAM 257 
 
 before those tiny lines he loved because they were a 
 part of her. 
 
 She waited a moment and then said, looking out of 
 the window 
 
 "You like Canada ? You want to go back ?" 
 
 "You bet I do," he said. "I've a life out there. 
 Here, I should have no chance at all. I never was any 
 good at clerical work and I don't understand English 
 farming. Besides, my whole property is being made 
 yet, and I could never realise at present to bring in 
 anything worth while. I couldn't possibly find enough 
 capital to start a second farm in England, even if I 
 wanted to." He paused, glancing sharply at her. 
 "You don't funk going out with me?" 
 
 "Why! Don't you remember you said at the Pic- 
 ture Palace that first time we were alone, that I was 
 cut out for a colonist's wife?" she said. Then she 
 added in a low tone and with a wistfulness he could not 
 understand: "No, Julian; I'm not afraid of a life out 
 there with you." 
 
 "But your people, I fear, won't like it. What do 
 they say?" 
 
 She looked down, twisting her fingers. 
 
 "They don't say anything. I've not told them." 
 
 "Not told them! You've said nothing about my 
 getting my discharge and going back to Canada?" 
 
 "No." She waited a moment, wondering what was 
 going to happen next; then instinct came to her aid 
 and she rose and slipped her hand through his arm, 
 pressing herself against him. "I wanted to get off 
 without any fuss and discussion I wanted so to come 
 to you, dear." 
 
 And the tide of his passion swept over him again;
 
 258 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 he could not keep his mind clear enough to reason out 
 what her words meant he only knew she was im- 
 measurable dear and that he could feel her sweetness 
 pressing against him. Gently, after he had kissed her 
 as if she were something breakable and precious 
 he put her down on the broad window-sill again and 
 sat beside her with her hand in his. The trail of crim- 
 son Virginia Creeper making shadows on her pale face 
 for some reason caused him to picture her walking 
 in his apple orchard in spring with the wind in her 
 hair leaning towards her with her hand tight 
 clasped, he told her of the life out there that they 
 were going to live together. He'd worked for it and 
 earned it by ceaseless toil and it was a part of him; 
 she realised that as she watched his face and listened 
 to his voice. 
 
 "Thank God I've got it to fall back on now," he 
 said. "The doctors think my arm may get nearly right 
 again in the dry Canadian air, but I have reached a 
 point where I can afford to hire for the actual manual 
 labour; or I may take the man who is looking after 
 it now into partnership. I've not settled yet what I 
 shall do exactly." He paused, smiling with his bright, 
 dark eyes into hers. "There's one thing certain, and 
 it's the one that matters most-: you'll be there !" 
 
 Barbara released her hand and sat plucking her 
 gown and looking down. 
 
 "You would hate to be in an office in England, of 
 course." 
 
 "I should loathe it. Besides, I'm no good at office 
 work, and I could never get to be anything more than 
 a clerk or a shopman here. My job's out there and 
 I'm glad of it. I like the freedom of the life."
 
 CHELTENHAM 259 
 
 "Yes. I can't picture you chained to a desk or a 
 counter," said Barbara still in the same odd, inward 
 tone. "But you'd do it for me, wouldn't you? If I 
 had to stay in England ?" 
 
 "I would if I couldn't have you in any other way," 
 he answered. "I'd live anywhere and do anything 
 for that" 
 
 She saw his vivid, seamed face approaching hers 
 once more and she pushed him back with both hands, 
 gazing at him with a sort of desperate earnestness 
 which he did not understand or even notice through 
 the haze of his own emotion. 
 
 "Julian," she said, "you'd chafe your heart out here 
 in any job you could get. You'd settle down at first, 
 
 perhaps, while it was all new; but afterwards " 
 
 She stopped short, thinking on into the future for him, 
 as women do for their children; and she saw him 
 dulled, fretted, narrowed, embittered, or forced into 
 some evilly fantastic escape from bonds that irked him 
 unbearably : but she never once doubted that he would 
 still love her through it all. If he stayed in England 
 he would be torn to agony all his days by his love for 
 her dragging one way and his love of freedom and 
 adventure dragging the other. He had gained char- 
 acter from his experience which would make him stick 
 to his job, she believed; but he would not be happy 
 even with her love. 
 
 She stared out of the open window, turning away 
 from him, vaguely conscious with that fine hearing 
 of tiers of the noises of Cheltenham, which were 
 quite different from those of Flodmouth ; lighter, more 
 tripping and ordered, mingled always with the delicate 
 sound of branches moving a little in the quiet air.
 
 260 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 And beneath that her soul listened again to the same 
 under-sound which she had been gradually hearing 
 more and more clearly during the past year in Flod- 
 mouth which had, in all those months when her 
 hands and not her mind were occupied, become a sort 
 of obsession, colouring everything, coming into every- 
 thing, while she herself remained unaware of any ab- 
 normal state of mind. 
 
 But these feelings all passed through her being in 
 the brief time between her saying "afterwards . . ." 
 and his replying gravely 
 
 "Do you want me to stop in England, Barbara?" 
 
 She looked straight at him, exaltation and yet clear 
 truth in her eyes. 
 
 "No, Julian, I would rather you went back." 
 
 "Because I didn't enlist with the Canadians, you 
 know. I came over on my own and joined up here, 
 so I am not obliged to go over to Canada to get my 
 -discharge. I can simply stay on here, if I wish." 
 
 "But you don't, Julian." She tried to smile and 
 speak lightly, touching his hand; for she had learned 
 her power to distract him by touch from seeing too 
 clearly what was in her thoughts. 
 
 So he took her in his arms again, murmuring close 
 to her soft cheek: "You don't mind this, dear? Do 
 you?" 
 
 "Mind !" She clung to him. "What makes you say 
 that?" 
 
 "I don't know. You looked so pale sitting in that 
 window. As if I'd tired you out, somehow." 
 
 "No, no." She pressed her head on his shoulder 
 and let her body relax, saying in that strange, inward 
 voice: "Nd! This is rest."
 
 CHELTENHAM 261 
 
 "Barbara, to think of the time when I shall have you 
 always : coming in from work and you there ; and 
 no saying good-night. My own little love. You do 
 love me, don't you?" 
 
 "Oh, Julian, I do love you!" she whispered. "I've 
 lain awake and thought of you and wanted so to kiss 
 the scar on your face : I don't know why I always 
 thought of that." 
 
 "My little girl; my sweetheart!" he murmured in 
 a transport of tenderness. "We must be married 
 soon, whether I can take you over with me at present 
 or not. But if I once get you how can I leave you ?" 
 
 She lay in his arms a few moments without speak- 
 ing, then she got up and took her hat from the mantel- 
 piece 
 
 "We must go now." 
 
 "Yes, I suppose so, or we shall have that sour-faced 
 old party from next door coming to see if we have 
 stolen the gas-fittings." He looked round at the win- 
 dows and the panelled walls. "Tell you what, Bar- 
 bara, if I were a millionaire, I should buy this house 
 just as it stands for us to stay in when we come to 
 visit England. Then when we got to be old folks our- 
 selves, and the young ones could run our place in 
 Canada, we might come here for long spells at a time.. 
 Seems to me Cheltenham wouldn't be a bad place to sit 
 down in after the day's work was over. There's some- 
 thing about these old houses that would go well with, 
 a happy old age." 
 
 "Oh! Don't!" Barbara turned round sharply with 
 her hands still to her hat; then she began to cry bit- 
 terly, but stemmed her tears almost as soon as they be- 
 gan.
 
 262 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "Why: what's the matter, dear?" he said, hurrying 
 across to her. "Has the pin pricked you?" 
 
 She walked to the door and turned then, facing him 
 with a smile. "Silly! As if I should cry because a 
 pin pricked me !" 
 
 "Then what was it ?" 
 
 She preceded him through the hall, head bent 
 
 "I I didn't like to hear you talk about getting 
 old," she faltered. 
 
 "Was that all ? Little goose, we shall have to grow 
 old some day ; and I am thinking of all the lovely years 
 in between." He paused just inside the door and 
 kissed her once again: then he turned the key in the 
 lock and they emerged from the shadows into the 
 bright afternoon. 
 
 "Good-bye, old house," he said. "We won't for- 
 get you; will we, Barbara?" 
 
 Barbara shook her head and said nothing, biting her 
 lip. 
 
 But when he came down the steps next door after 
 delivering up the keys, she was quite gay and smiling. 
 
 "Come!" she said. "Let us go and have tea some- 
 where." 
 
 "Right-o ! I'm a true Canadian for liking a cup of 
 tea, but I like it good and strong too, with plenty of 
 ugar in it." 
 
 "You always drink it with your dinner out there, 
 don't you?" 
 
 And so Barbara led him on to speak of every trifling 
 detail of his life in Canada, hanging on his words as 
 he described the cooking stoves, and meals, and long 
 drives in wintry weather, and parties at Christmas 
 time, as if it were some wonderful tale of Ulysses.
 
 CHELTENHAM 263 
 
 Every now and then she made him repeat some trivial 
 thing over again, as if to fix it in her mind, until even 
 he turned upon her at last with a laugh and a jest: 
 "I can't remember any more, old girl, you'll have to 
 come and see the rest for yourself." But he was 
 touched by her interest in his daily life to a more real 
 sense of the bond btween them than he had ever felt 
 before. 
 
 They had their tea in an old-fashioned confection- 
 er's, where the very walls seemed permeated by memo- 
 ries of long-past banquets provided under that roof for 
 Nabobs who came home, after a twenty or thirty years' 
 uninterrupted residence out in India, to enjoy them- 
 selves on what was left of their lives after serving 
 their country on chutney and brandy pawnee but 
 serving it well, all the same. There was an old waiter 
 left who seemed to belong to the past, but the rest of 
 the attendants were girls with crimped hair and pow- 
 dered faces who belonged to the day of Barbara and 
 her lover. 
 
 It was once more growing dark as they came out 
 after tea, just as it had been the day before. On their 
 way through the shop they passed by jars of potted 
 lampreys from the Severn which were delicious enough 
 and rich enough to make the legend of a greedy king's 
 end a thing that might happen to anybody, and which 
 linked up the present with the past more acutely even 
 than the waiter and the broad walks and the dignified 
 houses like a little, shrill note in this symphony of 
 bygone times which reached the ear almost with a sense 
 of touch, it was so clear. The idea of permanence 
 which made the town a restful place to grow old in en- 
 veloped Brooke like a tangible atmosphere as he walked
 
 264 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 by Barbara's side past the shops with their gay fruit 
 and lustrous fish and all the coloured variety of their 
 wares. In the whole of his adventurous life he had 
 never before felt so lulled into a quiet realisation of 
 things happy now, and going to last His joy was so 
 deep that it became quiet, just sparkled over at the 
 top by little remarks he made to Barbara for the 
 pleasure of hearing her voice and seeing her face turn 
 to him. 
 
 When they reached the same jeweller's that they 
 had noticed the afternoon before, he said to her 
 
 "We'll go in now to buy that ring, Barbara. I 
 won't be put off any longer." And he marched in, 
 leaving her to follow. 
 
 The elderly shopman spread trays of different jewels 
 for her to choose from, glancing with sympathy from 
 the wounded soldier to the girl. So here it was again ; 
 war suffering loss and yet love holding strong 
 through it all, to remain when all else was gone. This 
 was what his heart said, under his dry and starched 
 exterior, though he was not aware of his heart speak- 
 ing at all. He only made up his mind not to bring out 
 any very expensive rings "for fear the poor chap 
 should be run in for more than he could afford." But 
 Barbara so insisted on having a very cheap one with- 
 out stones that he was after all disappointed a little, 
 for he was a tradesman and human. However, he 
 could not feel really sorry, because of that voice in his 
 heart, and he murmured as he handed the receipted 
 bill : "Chaste design; and it has the advantage of being 
 suitable to wear at all times and seasons like a wed- 
 ding-ring." 
 
 Brooke beamed at the little grey man who thus so
 
 CHELTENHAM 265 
 
 splendidly consoled him for his disappointment; and 
 as they came out of the shop he took Barbara's arm 
 and whispered 
 
 "So that was it? You wanted one you could do 
 chores in, you darling! I just love you for that more 
 than ever before, Barbara." He had stopped short in 
 the midst of all the people and a fresh-faced, fiery old 
 gentleman in spats quite snorted as he bumped into 
 the couple; then saw Brooke's arm and said quite 
 humbly : "I beg your pardon, sir." 
 
 "What on earth are you stopping for, Julian?" said 
 Barbara. 
 
 "The broken wedding-ring that wants joining to- 
 gether and making to fit you properly. You've got it 
 in your purse, haven't you?" 
 
 "Oh, don't let us bother with it now," said Barbara, 
 hurrying on. 
 
 "But it would be so easily done here," protested 
 Brooke, obliged to follow her. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "Not now." Then she caught sight of a chocolate 
 shop and seized on a distraction. "Oh, do go in and 
 get me some chocs! I've not had any for such an 
 age." 
 
 "Well . . ." He allowed the matter to pass for 
 the moment and came forth in two minutes with a 
 large packet in his hand. "Now for the jeweller's!" 
 
 "No, dear," pleaded Barbara. "Let us go and sit 
 on one of those seats opposite while we eat the sweets." 
 
 "We can do that afterwards." He hesitated; but 
 Barbara was already making her way across the road. 
 
 It was very pleasant under the high trees, though 
 there was a slight mist and no stars. They sat on
 
 266 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 until Brooke shivered in spite of his overcoat, and then 
 Barbara jumped up with a self-reproachful 
 
 "Oh, Julian! I forgot you are an invalid. How 
 selfish I am ! You are getting cold here." 
 
 "Nonsense! I'm perfectly all right. Do stay. It 
 is all your fancy," he pleaded. 
 
 But she was not to be persuaded, and he had at last 
 to walk with her past the narrow garden to the board- 
 ing-house. 
 
 "To-morrow at the same time, then?" he said, as 
 they parted. 
 
 "Yes." She paused on the bottom step. "You 
 know to-morrow's the last day?" 
 
 "Know! I should think I do. Well, one blessing, 
 this sort of thing will soon be ended." 
 
 "Good-night!" She was on the top of the steps 
 now. 
 
 "Good-night!" he answered, but in spite of feeling 
 cold he remained standing there a long time after- 
 wards; he seemed as if he could not tear himself away 
 from the house that sheltered her.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE RETURN 
 
 THEY sat under one of the great beeches which 
 had grown to such a beautiful and even stature 
 in that kindly air, and were so different from the storm- 
 bent trees of Scarcliffe. 
 
 "You're very quiet to-day, Barbara," he said. 
 "You look as if you had slept badly." 
 
 "Do I? Oh, I did rather." But she did not turn 
 to him, and continued to stare before her with dark 
 encircled eyes. 
 
 He moved a little closer and took her hand that lay 
 on her knee under her muff. 
 
 "Cheer up, old girl! We've had a glorious time 
 whatever happens next." 
 
 She turned to him now but there was still no smile 
 on her face, and she said with a brooding gravity 
 
 "Then I was right to come?" 
 
 "Of course you were. What do you mean, Bar- 
 bara ?" he said, beginning to be a little puzzled and un- 
 easy. 
 
 "I thought it all out : the hours I lay awake at home, 
 
 thinking " She paused. "And now I have only 
 
 made it so much harder." 
 
 "I don't understand. What are you talking about?" 
 he said sharply. 
 
 267
 
 268 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 She stared before her again. She ielt she could not 
 tell him yet, and yet she must. . . . When that soldier 
 had crossed the road she would tell him. No, when 
 that woman had turned the corner. Now! 
 
 She gave a little gasp, catching her breath : "I came 
 to Cheltenham to tell you I couldn't marry you. I 
 thought I might hurt you less than by writing and 
 I've only hurt you more." 
 
 "Barbara ! You're a bit over-wrought and hysteri- 
 cal, dear. You don't mean it. You can't mean it," 
 he said. "Good God! The way you looked when I 
 met you on the Promenade under these trees and yes- 
 terday in that empty house. You're in love with me. 
 Whatever you say, I know you love me as I love you. 
 I could feel it when I held you in my arms. You can't 
 make me believe you don't love me." 
 
 "I'm not trying to, Julian," she said sadly, and her 
 very quietness only alarmed him the more. 
 
 "But if you do care for me what in the world is all 
 this about?" he exclaimed. "You can't mean to say 
 you 'let me kiss you as I did, all the time knowing you 
 were going to turn me down? The thing's in- 
 credible!" 
 
 "I did very wrong." She waited, biting her lip. 
 "I I couldn't help it, Julian. I couldn't send you 
 away from me all at once as I meant to. It all seemed 
 so sunny and lovely here that first afternoon, and you 
 with me." A tear rolled down her cheek and she felt 
 a salt taste on her lips, but she did not wipe it away. 
 "I couldn't bear to spoil it all. I felt as if I must 
 have a bit of good time if I died for it afterwards. It 
 
 would have to last " She broke off, fighting down 
 
 her emotion.
 
 THE RETURN 269 
 
 He looked at her and took her hand again. 
 
 "Poor little girl! Dear little girl!" he murmured, 
 moving close to her on the seat and disregarding the 
 supercilious glance of a passer-by. "What maggot 
 has she got in her brain now? Come, out with it!" 
 
 She shook her head and said with a sort of dull 
 obstinacy, clinging to one phrase like a shipwrecked 
 voyager in a stormy sea : "I can't marry you. I came 
 because I thought it would be cowardly to write. I 
 thought it would hurt you less if I told you by word of 
 mouth. I'm sorry I did now." 
 
 "But this is stark nonsense," he protested. "You 
 admit you love me and yet you go on like this. You 
 won't even give me your reason for not wanting to 
 marry me. I have a right to know that, at least. 
 Can't you realise that you are behaving towards me 
 with the grossest unfairness?" 
 
 "Yes, Julian; I know all that," she said in a low, 
 hopeless voice that disarmed him again. 
 
 "Come, Barbara dearest, tell me !" he urged, looking 
 into her face. She was conscious of his ardent gaze 
 burning through his drooped eyelids and her whole 
 being yearned towards him, but in proportion as it 
 hurt she felt justified in what she was doing; the very 
 agony made her feel she must be right. 
 
 "Don't urge me any more, Julian," she said faintly, 
 white to the lips. "I can't endure any more." 
 
 And it was so wrung out of her, like the cry of a 
 martyr on the rack, that Brooke could not persist; he 
 was bound to pity her despite his sense of thwarted be- 
 wilderment. 
 
 They sat a moment or two in silence, yellow leaves 
 like flakes of gold floating down upon them through
 
 270 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 the misty, sunshiny air and in the silence a sudden 
 recollection of their odd dream came to Brooke. He 
 pushed the thought back, knowing that a coincidence 
 had made it come true and yet it had come true. 
 
 Irrationally, he was all at once weighed down by 
 Barbara's hopelessness; the blank sense of utter loss he 
 had felt in the dream returned upon him now. He 
 wondered if she remembered, but she did not at that 
 time, because all her powers were concentrated in 
 bearing an agony which she knew a word would free 
 her from at once. 
 
 "I'd better be going in now; I have to pack," she 
 said, rising rather unsteadily. 
 
 He rose, too, and put his hand through her arm. 
 
 "Your packing won't take five minutes," he said. 
 "I am determined to talk this out with you, Barbara. 
 You won't get away from me like this." 
 
 She sat down again, seeming glad to be spared the 
 effort of standing. 
 
 "Very well. You have a right to that, Julian." 
 
 He looked down at her, maddened by the resistance 
 of a thing so frail that he could not bend ; then he flung 
 himself upon the seat with his right arm about her, 
 pressing her to him. An elderly gentleman scowled 
 round, outraged, but he did not care if all the world 
 looked on and frowned. 
 
 "Barbara!" he whispered fiercely. "I'm going to 
 marry you before you leave this place. Do you hear ? 
 I'm going to marry you before you go home. You 
 can stay on a few days and I'll get a special license 
 and we'll be married. Then we'll talk we'll talk all 
 you like. But I'm going to make sure of you first." 
 
 As he felt her body relax and press against his arm,
 
 THE RETURN 271 
 
 and heard a little sigh come from her parted lips, he 
 thought he had triumphed and rejoiced already like a 
 bridegroom over his bride. Then Barbara's attitude 
 stiffened and she drew herself away from him, filling 
 him with a wild anger that was beyond her concep- 
 tion; his very manhood seemed to be frustrated, out- 
 raged. With an incoherent sound between a word 
 and a cry he jumped up from her side and stood trem- 
 bling, white with rage, the scar showing livid on his 
 drawn face. 
 
 "Then you really have been fooling me all the 
 time? You wanted my love-making but you didn't 
 
 want me? And I thought you too good " He 
 
 choked on the words. "So that was the reason you 
 wouldn't have the wedding-ring mended : I see now. 
 You knew you wouldn't want it. Go home, then! 
 Go home and marry a man that's better off than me 
 if you can find one. I don't care! I've done with 
 you!" 
 
 He turned round and tore off down the wide road 
 towards the open country. At first her eyes were 
 closed because the old houses and the yellowing trees 
 all swam round her, but when she opened them he 
 was still visible a long way off, walking with his light 
 alert step in the pale sunshine. She saw him going 
 so out of her life and she felt she must die then of 
 life's intolerable emptiness; but after a while she got 
 up and went back to the boarding-house. 
 
 All next day, while she was travelling, the country 
 through which she passed seemed quite unreal. She 
 was conscious of an acute pain in her head and a sense 
 of unutterable fatigue, but behind or beneath the
 
 272 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 agony, shining through it, was a sort of exaltation 
 which alone kept her from going under. All through 
 the intolerable journey her thoughts were dulled and 
 indefinite, save for the stabs of agony which came 
 every time that Brook's last words repeated them- 
 selves in her mind. The recollection of their love- 
 making among the golden leaves and the sunshine was 
 spoilt by the sharp pain which must now always go 
 with it. She endured that last pain of love which 
 comes when love's memories are spoilt. 
 
 As she sat in a middle seat, crushed against a fat 
 woman on the one side and a restless child on the other, 
 she experienced the blank despair of youth which sees 
 no opening in the darkness. She did, indeed, envy the 
 wife whom Brooke had married and buried, for that 
 girl had only died and he could still think well of her. 
 
 At last she alighted, cramped and weary, at the 
 arched station which had as yet been the bourne of all 
 her journeyings; and the Flodmouth noises again ac- 
 companied her thoughts unnoticed as they had always 
 done, accentuating by their very familiarity the strange 
 misery in which she came home. Now she knew that 
 when she went to Cheltenham she had been compara- 
 tively speaking, happy; there was still a hope at the 
 bottom of all her resolves that something would hap- 
 pen to prevent the sacrifice. This hope lives unde- 
 tected in the heart of every human being who offers 
 up something almost beyond their power, and Barbara 
 had been inspired by it during those first two days at 
 Cheltenham. 
 
 Now the incredible had happened after all, and she 
 was stunned for the time being by the magnitude of 
 her Loss the time was yet to come when the recur-
 
 THE RETURN 273 
 
 ring stabs of pain would be a constant agony. Her 
 look was such that Mrs. Simpson's heart failed when 
 she saw her daughter: fears sprang bristling to the 
 surface. . . . What had that man done to her girl? 
 But she said quietly enough: "You look tired, Bar- 
 bara. Come and have some tea at once !" 
 
 "Father in yet?" said Barbara, forcing herself to 
 respond. 
 
 "No; he will be in directly." 
 
 Then Elsie came into the room with the tea-pot and 
 they sat down by the table. To Barbara the very 
 sameness of it all after what she had passed through 
 made it seem strange. 
 
 "I see you have been taking some of the pictures 
 down," she said. 
 
 "Yes; haven't you heard? You do look a worm, 
 Barbara, Cheltenham hasn't done you much good. I 
 thought Mother had written to tell you," said Elsie 
 excitedly. 
 
 Barbara turned to her mother with a listlessness 
 that Mrs. Simpson noted with a pang of apprehension. 
 
 "What is it, Mother?" 
 
 "We are leaving this house," said Mrs. Simpson. 
 "I did write, but the letter must have missed you." 
 
 "Leaving? At once?" said Barbara, stirred out of 
 her self-engrossment. 
 
 "Yes; we have an offer to sub-let it if we can be out 
 in a fortnight. Some man on one of the Government 
 jobs wants to take it. Your Father thinks as I do, 
 that we ought to close with the offer and go into a 
 much smaller house at once," said Mrs. Simpson, 
 "Don't you agree?"
 
 274 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "Oh yes. Less coals and everything will be needed 
 in a little house," said Barbara. 
 
 "Goodness!" cried Elsie. "You talk about leaving 
 this dear old house where we all grew up as if i^ 
 were buying a new dish-cloth! Aren't you sorry to 
 go?" 
 
 "I'm very sorry," said Barbara duly. "Have you 
 heard of another house that will do, Mother?" 
 
 There is one of those little new houses in Thornley 
 Street to let; sitting-room, kitchen, three bedrooms 
 and bathroom. All we need." 
 
 "Oh yes." Barbara roused herself. "I thought 
 them very nice little houses." 
 
 "I rather wish there wasn't a piano on one side and 
 a baby on the other and about ten little boys always 
 playing and yelling outside," said Elsie. "But that's 
 a detail." 
 
 "Oh, we shall get used to it; and you were a crying 
 baby yourself once," smiled Mrs. Simpson. 
 
 Then Mr. Simpson's key sounded in the lock and 
 Barbara ran out to greet her father. 
 
 "Well! Well!" he said. "What news from the 
 seat of war, eh? Wounded warrior v going on all 
 right?" 
 
 Barbara felt all the blood rushing to her face, then 
 it receded, leaving her very pale. 
 
 "He seems well in himself, but his arm remains 
 tiresome. They are going to give him his discharge," 
 she said. 
 
 "That's bad luck about the arm, I mean," said Mr. 
 Simpson gravely. "What will he do for a living?" 
 
 "Oh, he is going back to his fruit farm in Canada," 
 said Barbara, sitting down to the table again.
 
 THE RETURN 275 
 
 "Soon?" said Mrs. Simpson quickly. 
 
 "Yes, I expect so." 
 
 Elsie laughed. 
 
 "Expect so! As if she didn't know. I dare say 
 she has fixed up to go with him." 
 
 "I don't fancy they let women travel just at pres- 
 ent," said Barbara. Then she hesitated, fingering her 
 teaspoon. "But that won't matter to me one way or 
 another. I'm not going at all." 
 
 Mrs. Simpson glanced up anxiously. 
 
 "Not going at all? What do you mean, Barbara?" 
 
 "I am not " She paused a moment and mois- 
 tened her lips. "There is nothing between Julian 
 Brooke and me any longer, Mother." 
 
 "What!" shrilled Elsie. "You've broken it off? 
 Well, I was never much for him, but I do call that 
 mean, just when he has crocked up and knows his arm 
 won't get right any more." 
 
 "They say it may come all right in the dry air of 
 Canada," replied Barbara in a low voice. 
 
 Mr. Simpson stared at her in innocent amazement. 
 
 "You can't have chucked him for that, Barbara?" 
 
 "Of course not," said Barbara, roused to faint in- 
 dignation. "Nobody in their senses could think such 
 a thing." 
 
 "Well," said Elsie, "I know what / should think if 
 I were Brooke." 
 
 "He never would " began Barbara angrily ; then 
 
 it swept over her all in a minute that he had so thought 
 of her ... he had thought that of her. . . . Again 
 she saw him walking away from her quickly through 
 the pale sunshine, awkwardly clad in the blue uniform 
 and rough khaki overcoat, and yet the thin alertness
 
 276 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 of his figure showing plainly even at a distance. "I 
 can't help what he thinks," she added, pressing her 
 finger on her lip to stop its trembling. 
 
 "Well, I can't say I'm sorry so far as you are con- 
 cerned," said Mr. Simpson cheerfully. "I suppose 
 girls do get these infatuations for soldiers, and I can 
 understand it right enough. Sort of 'Give the boys 
 a good time' feeling; knowing how plucky they are. 
 Dessay I should have been the same myself if I'd been 
 a girl." 
 
 "And I hope you wouldn't!" cried Elsie indignantly. 
 "I'm ashamed of you, Father; as if that were all our 
 brave soldiers were good for! And I call it most 
 awfully mean of Barbara if she has turned down 
 Brooke just because of his bad arm, after going on 
 with him all this time." 
 
 "Elsie!" said Mrs. Simpson with gentle vehemence; 
 "you must not talk like that. You know nothing at 
 all about it. I am perfectly certain that Barbara has 
 some other and good reason for acting as she has 
 done." 
 
 Mr. Simpson flushed purple and blurted out 
 
 "Surely the chap behaved properly ? He he didn't 
 try to take any advantage of your being there by your- 
 self ? I said you never ought to have gone." 
 
 "Father! How can you say such a wicked thing?" 
 cried Barbara, starting up; "you who know Julian!" 
 And she wept, hiding her face in her hands. "He's 
 so good," she sobbed. "He's as honourable as you 
 are, Dad. I I can't bear you to say such things." 
 
 Mr. Simpson came nearer and patted her shoulder. 
 
 "*There, there, my girl!" he said uncomfortably.
 
 THE RETURN 277 
 
 "I never meant to be unkind; only you must have had 
 some reason, you know." 
 
 "It had nothing to do with Julian; nothing at all. 
 I can't bear for you to think ill of him. I'm the one 
 who did it all. He was in a terrible way when I told 
 him." 
 
 "Well, well; a girl can't always know her own 
 mind," consoled Mr. Simpson. "Don't you fash your- 
 self too much, Barbara. I've no doubt he'll find an- 
 other girl before long and cheer up all right." 
 
 "Funny thing about Barbara," said Elsie, "she 
 thinks she wants them until she gets them and then 
 she doesn't want them any more; but when it's a 
 wounded soldier, I think she ought to settle up with 
 herself before it comes to that pass." 
 
 "Oh!" Barbara suddenly began to sob hysterically, 
 worn out with sleeplessness, fatigue, and emotion. 
 "Oh, I did it for the best, and now you all turn round 
 on me. I never thought you would treat me like this." 
 So saying she pushed back her chair and hurried away 
 from the room, calling over her shoulder: "Nobody 
 need come up. I don't want anybody. I only want 
 to be left alone !" 
 
 The three left behind stared blankly at each other. 
 Elsie was the first to speak, glancing at her Mother's 
 stunned face. "Don't look like that, Mother," she 
 said. "Barbara will get over it. Oh, dear! I hate 
 all this fuss about young men. I wish to goodness 
 she would get married and have done with it." 
 
 Mrs. Simpson forced herself to smile and said al- 
 most easily 
 
 "I dare say it is only a lovers' quarrel. Or she may 
 find that she cannot care for him after all. You see
 
 278 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 they really knew very little indeed of one another." 
 
 Mr. Simpson frowned uneasily. 
 
 "We ought not to have let her go to Cheltenham 
 alone to meet the fellow. It was a wrong thing to do. 
 I think you ought to pop upstairs, Harriet, and see 
 what she has to say about it." 
 
 But Mrs. Simpson loved Barbara enough to leave 
 her alone, though every fibre of her mother's heart was 
 being drawn with a sort of agony towards the bedroom 
 upstairs. She even managed to distract Mr. Simp- 
 son's attention to the new house and the discussion of 
 those larger articles of furniture which they would 
 be obliged to part with, until at last it was time for 
 Elsie to go to bed. 
 
 Elsie went into the bedroom and saw Barbara still 
 dressed upon the bed with her face towards the wall. 
 She stood in the middle of the room hesitating for a 
 moment, and then said softly 
 
 "Asleep, Barbara?" 
 
 "No. My head's bad." 
 
 "Shall I get you something for it?" 
 
 "No, thank you." 
 
 Silence again, while Elsie went about her undress- 
 ing ; then Barbara felt a shawl gently laid over her and 
 moved impatiently 
 
 "Don't worry me, Elsie. It's very good of you; 
 but I only want to be quiet." 
 
 All the same the dull absorption of her grief was 
 disturbed and she soon rose and began to undress also. 
 The Flodmouth noises came in through the slightly 
 open window. . . . The sharp O-oh! of the engine at 
 the end of the street went through her head, and that
 
 THE RETURN 279 
 
 further roused her deadened sensibilities. She began 
 to see that she must say something to the pale, half- 
 scared girl who was tremblingly unpacking her suit 
 case. 
 
 "Don't bother, Elsie. I've got out all I want for 
 to-night," she said in a kinder tone. 
 
 "All right. I'll just hang up your new coat and 
 skirt." Elsie walked to the cupboard and then turned 
 round: "Barbara, why on earth did you spend all 
 that money on this if you were going to throw him 
 over ?" 
 
 Barbara said nothing. After a while Elsie ex- 
 claimed, peering through her cloud of dark hair: "I've 
 found out! You wanted him to remember you look- 
 ing nice all his life." She paused, her dark eyes won- 
 derfully shining and dilated as her quick, intuitive 
 thoughts flew here and there, catching at slight threads 
 and binding them together. "I I know . . . you're 
 in love with him still you don't want to give him up. 
 Then why " As she stared at Barbara with pierc- 
 ing eyes in her thin face and chin thrust out and wild 
 hair about her, she was like a witch ; a couple of hun- 
 dred years earlier she might have been taken for one 
 with her temperament. "Why !" she cried, "it's us . . . 
 you're sticking to us ... you think you oughtn't to 
 leave us !" 
 
 "Don't talk nonsense !" said Barbara, turning away. 
 
 "That's what you always say," answered Elsie, still 
 gazing tensely upon her sister. "But I'm often right. 
 I'm right this time. And I'm not going to let you do 
 it. Father and Mother and I don't want you to mar- 
 tyr yourself for us : we shall manage all right." 
 
 Barbara, amid all her own pre-occupation, felt a
 
 280 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 pang of tenderness and pity as she saw the little vibrat- 
 ing, fragile figure drawn up so gallantly in the childish 
 white night-dress. 
 
 "Elsie, you're not going to communicate your ideas 
 to Father and Mother, I hope?" she said quickly. 
 Then, as her sister did not reply: "Elsie! You must 
 >not do that, you know." 
 
 "Then it is so!" cried Elsie. "You wouldn't mind 
 me telling if it were not true. Well, I shall tell them. 
 I'm not going to have you spoil your life and Brooke's 
 for nothing like a silly girl in a story-book. I hate all 
 these misunderstandings that needn't happen at all if 
 people had any common sense." 
 
 "But, Elsie . . ." 
 
 "It's no good saying anything, Barbara. I'm just 
 not going to have you offering yourself up like a sort of 
 burnt-sacrifice to look after us. I shall tell Mother, 
 and so there!" 
 
 Barbara sat down, pressing her hand to her aching 
 head. There was no help for it; the thing must be 
 talked out now. 
 
 "Look here, Elsie," she said. "You remember how 
 seedy Mother was when we got home from Scarcliffe ?" 
 
 "Yes; but it was not your fault she couldn't get a 
 charwoman while we were away." 
 
 "That's neither here nor there. The thing is that 
 I saw the doctor one day and he told me Mother might 
 live one year and she might live twenty it it de- 
 pended upon us." 
 
 "Oh !" Elsie gave a little cry ; then she said in a low 
 tone: "I see how hard that makes it. If you had 
 been marrying any one in England it would not have 
 mattered so much. Can't Brooke stay in England?"
 
 THE RETURN 281 
 
 "He could; but as a broken man with all he has 
 worked for out there sacrificed. I daren't let him run 
 the risk, with his temperament. Fancy if I had to 
 watch him getting all spoilt and different through me. 
 That would be worse than giving him up, Elsie." 
 
 "Yes." Elsie stood brooding, a strangely old look 
 on her face. "Yes; you've got to take it- all in a 
 piece." Then she hid her face and began to cry 
 quietly : "Poor old Barbie ! Poor old Barbie !" 
 
 "Don't, Elsie ! I can't bear it," said Barbara sharp- 
 ly, and Elsie choked and swallowed and managed to 
 control herself. 
 
 "I promise not to tell, if that's any comfort to you," 
 she said. "On my honour, I promise not to." 
 
 "Thank you, Elsie : and now we'll never talk of this 
 subject any more," said Barbara wearily. "Try and 
 get to sleep. You must be tired." 
 
 Elsie turned the light out and said, with a pitiful 
 struggle to do what Barbara would like: "It's a fine 
 night, Barbie; the stars are shining. There's a cab 
 just driven away from Mrs. Bellerby's house : I think 
 she has come home from seeing Blanche. Isn't it sad 
 about Hugh Elliott having fallen?" 
 
 "Poor Blanche! Good-night, Elsie!" 
 
 Then there was quiet in the room but for the sounds 
 coming in through the open window. Barbara heard 
 them now, beating through her aching head; and 
 beneath them her soul listened to that other chorus 
 deepening and gathering strength with every moment 
 of the day and night . . . millions chanting the Song 
 of Sacrifice. 
 
 What did her lot of sorrow and sacrifice matter in 
 the face of all that? She felt it was nothing. She
 
 282 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 was carried along by that mighty chorus to which her 
 soul listened. Though she lay still on her bed, she was 
 following the great company of those who have so 
 gloried in the beauty of sacrifice that they saw in it 
 not a means but an end. All these months her re- 
 sponsive ardent mind had been tending towards that 
 condition, and now she experienced the result. 
 
 In the absorption of her own feelings, however, she 
 failed to weigh justly the wrong she was doing Brooke, 
 because in her present state of mind she felt that a 
 sacrifice which hurt so terribly must be the right one. 
 She knew that it would have hurt her comparatively 
 little to turn her back on those who have cared for 
 her all her life and to go out into a strange country 
 with a man she had known a few months. And 
 so she argued that her difficult course must be the best. 
 
 But every time she closed her eyes she could see the 
 wide road at Cheltenham, with Brooke's alert figure 
 disappearing into a hazy, sunshiny distance ; and there 
 was always a touch of loneliness and f orlornness about 
 the vanishing figure.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 CHANGE 
 
 BARBARA came down next morning to begin a 
 fortnight of such physical hard work as left no 
 time for thinking of her grief. It hung like a heavy 
 cloud over all she said and did ; but beneath that cloud 
 she had to wrestle with the immediate difficulties of a 
 removal from a comfortably sized house to a little 
 one. Wardrobes and sideboards bought in those safe 
 and spacious days of the Simpsons' wedding and in- 
 tended to last through a prosperous life-time could not 
 be bestowed in rooms suited to furniture of the "Where 
 Maggie got her home for ten pounds" description, so 
 a great deal had to be sorted out and sent to the sale- 
 rooms. 
 
 Two days after Barbara's return from Cheltenham, 
 Mrs. Simpson broke through the defensive and aggres- 
 sive cheerfulness with which her daugher had sur- 
 rounded herself. They were sorting out a drawer in 
 the sideboard which had contained cookery recipes 
 ever since Mrs. Simpson began to put them there as 
 a young bride, and it was some waft of summary air 
 from that first year of her marriage and which a re- 
 cipe for Strawberry Trifle with Macaroons caused to 
 blow across her memory, that made her force a way 
 timidly into her daughter's confidence. 
 
 283
 
 284 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "Barbara you don't regret? You're not fretting 
 after that man?" 
 
 "Do I look as if I were fretting?" said Barbara, 
 continuing to sort recipes. 
 
 "No." Mrs. Simpson paused. "But you wouldn't, 
 you know." She paused again. "Why did you go to 
 Cheltenham if you did not care for him? I must have 
 some explanation of that, dear. You owe it to both 
 your Father and me." 
 
 "Very well." Barbara threw a bundle of papers 
 into the basket. "I went because I thought it seemed 
 cowardly to break off my engagement by letter. At 
 least, that was the reason I thought I had," she added 
 in a low voice, anxious to speak the exact truth to her 
 mother. 
 
 "You wanted to see him? That was the real fact 
 of the matter," pursued Mrs. Simpson. 
 
 "Partly. . . . Oh, I suppose so." 
 
 "You are a queer girl, Barbara. You were very 
 fond of Frank Garret until he proposed, and then you 
 had no further use for him. Now it seems to be the 
 same with Brooke. You must be careful that you 
 don't throw too many chances of happiness away. 
 There comes a time when a girl does not find any 
 more." 
 
 "I don't want any more, Mother; not of that kind," 
 said Barbara rising. "It's time I put the pan on for 
 dinner." She went across the room and paused at 
 the door. "I'd rather not talk about this if you don't 
 mind. After all, what goes on between a girl and a 
 man is their business; neither side has any right to 
 give it away. It's it's about the one thing that you
 
 CHANGE 285 
 
 ought to keep to yourself. I'm not going to say any 
 more about it, Mother." 
 
 Mrs. Simpson bent her head over her recipes and 
 said nothing; but something in her pose both angered 
 and touched Barbara to the heart. There was a mo- 
 ment's silence; the Du Caines went past he war- 
 worn and thin, but cheery, and she in a new cheap 
 hat, radiant with happiness. They were living in that 
 short ten-days' leave, with death behind and death 
 waiting, a year's joy pressed together and sharpened to 
 something not abnormal but most clearly, finely ad- 
 venturous. Barbara was stirred to a high emotion as 
 she saw them go swinging by ... they were not just 
 the Du Caines with him on leave, but the whole glory 
 and horror and sacrifice of the great crusade for free- 
 dom. She turned to her mother with eyes a-shine and 
 face palely smiling 
 
 "Goodness, don't let's worry any more about me 
 and my petty little love-affairs !" And her tone trium- 
 phantly added: "What do they matter?" 
 
 But in her secret heart she was unconsciously aware 
 that youthful love must continue to matter while the 
 world lasted. However it might seem to be swamped 
 by the dreadful turmoil, it would spring up again 
 unaltered like corn on a deserted battle-field: it was 
 equally of the substance of human life. 
 
 This, however, was what she felt; what she thought 
 just then was quite different. And she went out into 
 the kitchen with a belief that she did, indeed, consider 
 her "bit of happiness" an affair of no great moment. 
 She had been pressed too close poor Barbara! to 
 the windows that death had opened upon the life of the 
 world to come. Middle age may look so close and
 
 286 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 bear it, but ardent sensitive youth is often impelled 
 either to snatch with desperate fingers every pleasure 
 obtainable because life is so short, or to become like 
 Barbara. 
 
 A heavy fog hung over Flodmouth, and Barbara 
 stood at the gate watching a removal van go down the 
 Avenue. It loomed oddly in the grey air, gigantic, al- 
 most threatening as if it were taking away into 
 nothingness a great deal more than handsome suites 
 of mahogany and rose-wood furniture for sale. Mrs. 
 Bellerby came out of the next gate with a tray in her 
 hands. 
 
 "I was just bringing this in, Barbara," she said. "I 
 thought you might be in rather an upset to-day, and 
 glad of a cup of tea all ready." 
 
 "How good of you," said Barbara, touched almost 
 to hurting point by this little kindness, as happens 
 when the heart is very full. 
 
 They went in together and sat down with Mrs. Simp- 
 son and Elsie in a dismantled room through which 
 the cold winds of strangeness seemed to be already 
 blowing it was not home any longer. But they joked 
 cheerfully about the good tea and the little hot cakes 
 that were not at all like war-time, and the spectacle of 
 Mrs. Bellerby whom they had laughed at so often 
 chasing her difficult "h's," was somehow intimately 
 dear to them. She was curled fringe, refinement 
 and all a part of that life in the Avenue which had 
 been on the whole so happy. She was like the broken 
 pump at the end of the village when you are saying 
 good-bye. 
 
 The attitude of mind of the Simpsons penetrated
 
 CHANGE 287 
 
 her understanding clearly enough, and she responded 
 to it the best she knew how, saying quite earnestly: 
 "You needn't think a little house will make any differ- 
 ence to your true friends, Mrs. Simpson. I shall 
 think nothing of the walk in fine weather and early 
 in the afternoon. I am only sorry you have a public- 
 house at the corner, but no doubt it will come in use- 
 ful if you need brandy in case of illness." She 
 paused. "That reminds me, poor Blanche sent her 
 love to you. A widow so young they say she looks 
 terribly pathetic in her weeds. My Dorothy is still 
 with her, you know, and Mrs. Elliott has taken them 
 again to the hotel at Brighton. Blanche could not 
 bear the quiet of the country it got on her nerves. 
 And a sort of second cousin of dear Hugh's is there 
 who has been such a wonderful comfort to her, poor 
 girl. He is invalided out of the army and has a place 
 larger than the Elliotts the eldest son of an Earl. It 
 is very delightful for dear Blanche having such nice 
 connections, and a great comfort to me. Mrs. Wilson 
 seemed to think a mother ought to be the one to re- 
 main with her, but I perfectly understand her clinging 
 to Hugh's people; don't you?" 
 
 "Yes, Mrs. Bellerby," said Mrs. Simpson very 
 gently. 
 
 And Elsie restrained the words that rose to her lips, 
 only saying to herself with a sort of moved fury : 
 "Now it's Mrs. Bellerby like all the rest. Why is it 
 like that? Why couldn't God make something in 
 daughters to match what there is in mothers? I hate 
 Blanche for not wanting her mother." 
 
 But Mrs. Bellerby rippled on : "Blanche is so good ; 
 she writes to me constantly, and so does Dorothy. I
 
 ^88 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 am very fortunate to have two such successful daugh- 
 ters. Not that poor Blanche Only, of course, 
 
 she is young yet. Did I tell you that Hugh made the 
 most wonderful will? Everything left absolutely; not 
 a word about marrying again. He was a noble char- 
 acter." 
 
 Then Elsie spoke she could hold herself in no 
 longer 
 
 "He is" she cried. "You don't think he's stopped 
 being because he has died for his country? He's as 
 much alive now as you or me. More; because he 
 hasn't to bother about a tiresome old body. And he's 
 going on being splendid all the time. Can't you feel 
 that?" 
 
 "Yes, of course," said Mrs. Bellerby uncomfortably. 
 
 "Elsie, don't be so vehement," said Mrs. Simpson. 
 
 "Poor old Elsie, she doesn't mean to be rude, she 
 only talks in italics because she's so horribly in ear- 
 nest," said Barbara, smiling at her sister. 
 
 "Well, I think I must be going," said Mrs. Bellerby. 
 Then she added to round off her departure: "You 
 know, Miss Felling returns to-night? She must have 
 been away some weeks." 
 
 "Yes. We shall be delighted to see her back,"' said 
 Mrs. Simpson. 
 
 "Oh! we all shall," said Mrs. Bellerby. 
 
 And they accompanied her to the door, Barbara 
 carrying the tray down the path and listening to a de- 
 tailed account of the fur coat which Mrs. Elliott had 
 given Blanche. 
 
 When Mr. Simpson came home from business he 
 also felt a cold wind of strangeness blowing through
 
 CHANGE 289 
 
 the house which he had prepared for his bride such 
 a warm and safe nest in the spring-time of his man- 
 hood. He did not give himself up to sentimental re- 
 flections of this sort, and was, indeed, unconscious of 
 having them at all; but they took the form of an at- 
 tack of indigestion and extreme irritability about the 
 drainage system of the new house. It seems queer) 
 that such beautiful jand deep feelings as a man's love 
 of the home he made for the wife of his youth should 
 express themselves in such a way, but they did; and 
 his strictures fell as a last straw on the shoulders of 
 his jaded family. It was Elsie, as usual, who felt 
 bound to become articulate. 
 
 "Really, Father, we can't help having to move into a 
 little house. It is just as horrid for us as for you." 
 
 But there she spoke falsely; because Mr. Simpson 
 suffered, in spite of reason, from the middle-class 
 man's feeling that his females ought to have been 
 guarded by him against such discomforts and hard- 
 ships. He was enveloped that evening in a fog of 
 failure through which he was unable to see clearly. 
 After a while the evening post came, and he went 
 heavily to take in the letters. 
 
 "One from your Aunt Horace," he said, opening 
 the envelope without any interest. "What does she 
 want? She's got all her money safe enough. She's 
 all right." He read listlessly, than his expression 
 changed and he looked excited : "I say, Harriet ! 
 Whatever do you think? Wonders '11 never cease. 
 She she actually offers to send Elsie to a good school 
 in Scotland where special attention is given to the girls' 
 health, and afterwards to stand expenses at College.'* 
 
 Mrs. Simpson sat down.
 
 ago THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "Goodness! You take my breath away, Sam. What 
 can have induced her to do it?" 
 
 "Seems she has come across somebody from Flod- 
 mouth at her boarding-house in Bath and has heard 
 we are obliged to leave this house. I think she really 
 was fond of Horace in her way, though she was spoilt 
 with having a large independent income of her own 
 and always doing just as she liked. Anyway, there it 
 is." He turned chuckling to Elsie: "That's a bit of 
 all right, eh? I shall have to buy you a pair of blue 
 stockings I saw hanging in a shop-window to-day, 
 eh?" And he rubbed his hands and chuckled again, 
 so glad to have something to feel jolly about once 
 more that the rest of his troubles seemed for the mo- 
 ment not to matter. 
 
 "I say, Elsie how glorious!" said Barbara, flushed 
 and smiling. "Mother, aren't you delighted?" 
 
 "Yes, dear," was all Mrs. Simpson could say, so 
 ardently was she thanking God: though at the same 
 time she saw a vista of years during which her girl 
 must go farther and farther away from her; and yet 
 she continued to give thanks because it was the ful- 
 filment of Elsie's dream. 
 
 Elsie herself sat quite still, twisting her thin fingers; 
 then she burst out: "Oh, Mother! Oh, Father! I'll 
 never hate anybody again." 
 
 They laughed, relieved to have some excuse for loos- 
 ing the tension. 
 
 "What makes you say that?" asked Barbara. 
 
 "Well, to think how I have detested old Aunt 
 Horace, and then she comes down like this and gives 
 me the one thing I want most in life. Oh! fancy me 
 at a good school where I can learn everything and get
 
 ^ CHANGE 291 
 
 strong at the same time; and then the glorious fun 
 I'll have at College. I feel as if it can't be true. It's 
 too good to be true!" 
 
 "Nonsense; nothing is, when you are sixteen," 
 smiled Mrs. Simpson. She turned to her husband: 
 "How pleased Horace would have been. You and he 
 got on so well together at the office, though she never 
 cared much about us. I expect she misses him now 
 more than she did at first, and has made this offer for 
 his sake." 
 
 "Perhaps her conscience troubles her a bit too," said 
 Mr. Simpson. "It was her withdrawing her capital 
 from the business that just finished me off, and I told 
 her so." He paused. "But I might have gone, any- 
 way. I didn't bear her any malice." 
 
 Mr. Simpson, speaking thus, spoke for a generation 
 of such just and tolerant Englishmen but Elsie 
 sounded another note. "I know you didn't But you 
 want to bear malice sometimes, Father. I call it 
 washy not to ; until the person does something to make 
 you feel different." 
 
 Mr. Simpson chuckled indulgently: "She's a real 
 firebrand, our Elsie is; she'll be setting the old Flod 
 on fire one of these days, I shouldn't wonder." 
 
 Barbara sat quietly among them, seeing the long, 
 monotonous years of a narrow life stretch out plainly 
 in front of her. Her future was settled now that 
 Elsie was going; and a stillness came down upon her 
 troubled spirit like the stillness before an altar. This 
 moment was a logical sequence of that other moment 
 three years ago when she heard the Flodmouth news- 
 boys crying, as they did then, the death of her Uncle 
 Horace. And with the loss of every Flodmouth man.
 
 292 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 she knew, or knew of, who had fallen since, the call to 
 sacrifice unwittingly grew clearer and clearer. Now, 
 when the door-bell rang and she had to speak to 
 some one at the door, it was as if she really rose from 
 her knees before an altar of the spirit, having found 
 peace. 
 
 Mr. Binny's housekeeper stood on the step, long- 
 faced and stolid. 
 
 "Mr. Binny's compliments, and he would be obliged 
 if Mr. Simpson could step across for a few minutes on 
 a matter of business." And she retired at once with- 
 out waiting for an answer. 
 
 "Father!" called Barbara from the passage. "Mr. 
 Binny wants to see you on business." 
 
 "Oh! I wonder if he's going to take Dad into 
 partnership," said Elsie, having swung round to the 
 point where only good seemed probable. "I shouldn't 
 wonder a bit if that is it." 
 
 "Rubbish !" said Mr. Simpson, taking his cap from 
 the rack. 
 
 He walked across the road and up the little path to 
 Mr. Binny's house, where the door opened at once by 
 no visible agency. It closed, and Mr. Binny stood 
 with Mr. Simpson in the dimly lighted passage. There 
 was an atmosphere of restrained emotion about Mr. 
 Binny which any woman would have felt at once, but 
 Mr. Simpson was masculinely impervious to it as he 
 put down his cap on the hall table. 
 
 "Well, what is it, Binny? Torn up your sugar-card 
 by accident and want me to save you from being 
 dragged in chains before the Lord Mayor; eh?" 
 
 Mr. Binny frowned. "Simpson," he said rather
 
 CHANGE 293 
 
 severely, "will you please walk into the front room?" 
 He shut the door, and in the full light it could be seen 
 that he was even more excited than his voice indicated ; 
 his forehead was mottled in red patches and he was 
 without a tie. Five of these ornaments of attire, how- 
 ever, lay on the table beside a basket of brussels sprouts 
 and a bundle of leeks. He grasped his mottled fore-- 
 head with a hand so scrupulously washed after gar- 
 dening operations that the very skin seemed to be worn 
 thin, and said desperately: "You'll excuse me, Simp- 
 son, for sending in to you when you are no doubt en- 
 gaged in packing up, but I have looked at these ties 
 until the colours all run together. I am unable to 
 exercise a calm judgment." 
 
 Mr. Simpson stared naturally. It seemed very 
 odd that Mr. Binny should have sent a formal message 
 by the housekeeper in order to consult him about ties. 
 Still, he was a good-natured man and ready to do his 
 best, so he stood by his friend's side and examined the 
 five neutral-tinted pieces of silk with attention. 
 
 "Blest if I can see any difference by this light," he 
 said at last. Then the oddness of it all again over- 
 whelmed him and he cocked up his eye anxiously at 
 his long, lank friend : surely the pressure of work and 
 
 war wasn't He broke off, even in his thoughts; 
 
 and concluded: "What are you driving at, Binny? 
 What the dickens does it matter?" 
 
 "Everything matters in in affairs of this sort," 
 said Mr. Binny, rubbing his chin nervously. "A deli- 
 cate female taste is so sensitive to these trifles." 
 
 Then Mr. Simpson began to see daylight. He 
 looked from the ties to the brussels sprouts, and from 
 the brussels sprouts to the leeks, with a countenance
 
 294 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 growing more and more illumined. But he was still 
 far from realising the seriousness of the situation. 
 
 "Shut your eyes and take the first tie that comes," he 
 said. "You'll be just as welcome to Miss Felling in 
 any tie so long as you take the leeks with you. Ho ! 
 Ho!" And he chuckled in what Mr. Binny, despite 
 old friendship, felt to be a very vulgar and irritating 
 manner. 
 
 "This is serious, Simpson," he said; then after a 
 pause he added with an effort: "Have you seen her 
 since she came back?" 
 
 "Who? Miss Felling? No," said Mr. Simpson. 
 
 Mr. Binny moved nearer, though the room was so 
 small and the door shut fast, and he dropped his voice : 
 "She looks beautiful, Simpson!" Then the ingrained 
 truthfulness of a lifetime forced him to spoil the effect 
 by adding: "At least, as near beautiful as makes no 
 matter." 
 
 "What!" said poor Mr. Simpson, again beginning 
 to have grave fears of his friend's mental balance. 
 "Oh, you're joking, Binny!" 
 
 "Do I look as if I were joking?" said Mr. Binny, 
 with such unconscious pathos that Mr. Simpson averted 
 his eyes from his friend's mottled countenance and 
 muttered hastily 
 
 "No doubt her long absence . . . you must have 
 missed her. ... I can quite understand 
 
 "No, you can't," said Mr. Binny surprisingly. "No, 
 one ever could, who hadn't actually seen her. I 
 chanced to be at the station when she arrived and 
 and I don't mind telling you, Simpson, though I 
 wouldn't breathe it to any one else in the world I hid 
 behind a luggage barrow."
 
 CHANGE 295 
 
 "Because she looked less less that is, more good- 
 looking than usual?" gasped Mr. Simpson round-eyed 1 
 
 "Yes. I couldn't face her. I felt I had been such. 
 a poltroon to allow myself to be put off for all these 
 years by a a nose." 
 
 "Well!" . . . Even in Mr. Simpson's bewilderment 
 he was conscious that no over but good old Binny 
 would have used the expression poltroon, and he re- 
 sponded rather feebly: "No, no! I couldn't call you 
 that. I couldn't call you that. After all, it is a great 
 drawback." 
 
 "Was!" whooped Mr. Binny excitedly. "Was? 
 It's gone! It isn't any more." 
 
 "You don't mean to say the poor lady has lost her 
 nose," said Mr. Simpson, sinking his slight aversion to 
 Miss Felling's conversation in his genuine concern for 
 an old neighbour. "I'm very sorry to hear that ! Very 
 sorry indeed !" 
 
 "She's lost her old nose, I mean," said Mr. Binny. 
 "It never will be small, but I don't care about that at 
 all. It it's exactly like other people's." 
 
 Mr. Simpson meditated. Miss Felling was a lonely 
 woman getting on in life, who was about to leave her 
 comfortable house because she could not afford to 
 live in it any longer. He hated to do her any injury. 
 And yet Binny was his friend and fellow-Mason. 
 "You you don't think she has been putting some of 
 that thick whitewash stuff on it out of a bottle?" he 
 said reluctantly at last. 
 
 Mr. Binny shook his head. 
 
 "I've seen her with stuff on it, in times past. No ! 
 This is a real alteration."
 
 296 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "Must be !" said Mr. Simpson, thinking deeply. "I 
 think I can give you a clue : Lillie." 
 
 "Lillie! Why, she is married and doesn't live in 
 London any more, so far as I know," said Mr. Binny. 
 
 "No, but she was employed as housekeeper with a 
 woman who kept one of those beauty shops," said Mr. 
 Simpson. "And she was very grateful to Miss Pell- 
 ing. She would no doubt urge the poor lady to go 
 that time when she fetched little Kitchener away. I'm 
 told they can do anything nearly at these places." 
 
 "Where did you hear it, Simpson?" asked Mr. Binny 
 "eagerly. 
 
 "Well," Mr. Simpson betrayed reluctance, "the fact 
 is, I sometimes just glance through the ladies' papers. 
 I once chanced to see in the advertisements that these 
 beauty specialists can remove little red veins and 
 all sorts of things. Not that I ever took much 
 notice." . . . 
 
 "Of course not. Well, I suppose that must be it," 
 said Mr. Binny dolorously. "In any case I ought to 
 have proposed to her before she had it done. I really 
 went to the station with that object in view, but she 
 would never believe me. I can't expect her to." He 
 sank into a seat and held his head again. "I shall die 
 a lonely old man with nobody to look after me in my 
 declining years. And I shall deserve it. I shall de- 
 serve it." Then he jumped up again and began finger- 
 ing the ties: "I think this is the most refined. I 
 shouldn't care to go in anything flashy on such an oc- 
 casion, you know." 
 
 "Great Scott, man!" said Mr. Simpson, rousing 
 himself to hearten the despondent lover. "You could
 
 CHANGE 297 
 
 go to a funeral in any of them. But you're not in- 
 tending to visit Miss Felling to-night, are you?" 
 
 Mr. Binny's look changed. With a sort of sly 
 shame-facedness he tapped Mr. Simpson's sleeve, and 
 said : "I don't want her to know I saw her at the sta- 
 tion. Do you take me? I I intend to propose in 
 the dark passage. She'll think I've not seen her. My 
 excuse for unceremonious entrance will be to put down 
 the baskets of vegetables which I could not give into 
 her hands both at once." 
 
 "But if the maid comes to the door?" suggested Mr. 
 Simpson. 
 
 For a moment Mr. Binny felt that anger against Mr. 
 Simpson which we all feel when a friend sees a fault 
 in a well-thought-out scheme; then he remembered 
 that Miss Felling was servantless. 
 
 "Really, Simpson, I should have thought you knew 
 she had no servant now," said Mr. Binny, cheering 
 up; but immediately he added, down in the depths 
 again: "She won't have me. She'll naturally think 
 I might have done it before or not at all." He paused 
 again and said meditatively: "I don't want to blame 
 circumstances, but I should have married when I was 
 twenty-five if it hadn't been for my mother and sisters. 
 Only I was like a good many young men of that age, 
 and had to control my feelings. So I suppose they got 
 so used to being controlled that they wouldn't run 
 away with me when I wanted them to." 
 
 Mr. Simpson hesitated and cleared his throat: it 
 was not easy for him to round off with a platitude this 
 account of Mr. Binny's sacrificed youth. But the plati- 
 tude had to come. 
 
 "Anyway, you can always have the satisfaction of
 
 298 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 knowing you did your duty by your mother and sis- 
 ters," he said. 
 
 "I suppose that is something," said Mr. Binny a lit- 
 tle wonderingly almost as if quite unconsciously he 
 asked that question of civilisation and the God Who 
 made him a man ; then that issue faded again into the 
 dim recesses of his mind and he returned to the con- 
 crete: "I feel convinced she will refuse me!" 
 
 "She won't " Mr. Simpson paused "she won't 
 
 refuse you if she wants to marry you. She'll never 
 cut off her nose to spite her face." 
 
 He felt immediately that it was an indelicate form 
 of speech under the circumstances, but all the same he 
 had borne involuntary witness to the fundamental com- 
 mon sense and generosity of a woman he had never 
 much liked, and that subtly pleased his inborn sense 
 of justice. So he continued in a more vigorous man- 
 ner : "Take your vegetables and be off with you. Faint 
 heart never won fair lady. Kiss her first and ask 
 afterwards!" 
 
 "Really " began Mr. Binny, but he subdued his 
 
 first sense of outrage in consideration of his friend's 
 services, and added in an anxious tone : "So this tie is 
 really all right? I think I'll take the sprouts in my 
 right hand and the leeks in my left so that I may give 
 her the sprouts, if any What do you think?" 
 
 Mr. Simpson did not say what he thought ; he mere- 
 ly took his cap from the hall table and preceded Mr. 
 Binny to the gate. 
 
 Two hours later the Simpson family had retired to 
 bed, with the exception of the master of the house, 
 who was going upstairs with a lighted candle, when a
 
 CHANGE 299 
 
 heavy knock resounded through the house. He has- 
 tily put down the candle and opened the front door. 
 
 "What's that? I'm sure I thought our lights were 
 all right," he said, peering out into the darkness where 
 he expected to see a brother Special Constable. Then 
 he said in another tone : "Why, Binny !" 
 
 "Yes; I felt I must just run across and let you 
 know." And even in the pitch darkness Mr. Binny 
 radiated like a beacon. "It's all right," he added 
 unnecessarily. 
 
 "Splendid ! I congratulate you," said Mr. Simpson. 
 "Won't you come in?" 
 
 "No, thank you. I promised er Lotty to look 
 out some papers for her soldiers," said Mr. Binny with 
 importance. 
 
 Mr. Simpson went upstairs chuckling. "I promised 
 Lotty" just like that it did sound funny. ... "I 
 promised Lotty." After all, it sounded rather nice 
 and comfortable too. ... As he reached the bedroom 
 door behind which his wife waited ready to talk every- 
 thing over with him, he felt very glad for poor old 
 Binny.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 WHAT REMAINS 
 
 THE Simpsons had now settled in their new home, 
 where the large oil-painting of Grandmother 
 Simpson which they had not the heart to do away 
 with took up most of the wall-space side of the room 
 opposite the fire. Indeed it was so close to the table 
 that Grandmother Simpson at first appeared to be 
 looming tremendous over every meal, demanding what 
 the old middle-class a type which she, in her cap and 
 her gold chain, and with her plainly indicated sense of 
 dignity and duty, so obviously represented was com- 
 ing to? Mr. Simpson's lurking sense of blame and 
 responsibility for having allowed his family to be 
 brought to this, was increased and sharpened for a 
 time by his constant vision of the redoubtable old lady 
 as he ate, but after a while the keenness of the impres- 
 sion wore off, and he began to remark how very snug 
 it all was, which was literally true. And they all four 
 expressed the opinion, at various times, that there was 
 something about the air of Thornley Street not ob- 
 servable in the Avenue which was equally true, be- 
 cause of a tannery near at hand which brought across 
 the street bitterish, leathery odours when the wind 
 was in the right direction. The inhabitants of the 
 neighbourhood further added that the smell was 
 
 300
 
 WHAT REMAINS 301 
 
 healthy and productive of length of years, which is a 
 thing people with their pathetic loyalty to the spot of 
 earth that gives them refuge, will come to say of al- 
 most any place. But when Mrs. Simpson went out of 
 the front door one Saturday morning, she was glad 
 to remember this cheering belief of her neighbours, for 
 the smell followed her down the street like something 
 alive and particularly unpleasant. 
 
 After a ride in the car and a short walk, she came 
 to her old shopping district which was familiar to her 
 from long use; and on entering a shop to buy a meat- 
 pie she encountered Miss Felling. As the two ladies 
 emerged together, and stood talking on the pavement, 
 Mrs. Simpson really had some difficulty in restraining 
 her gaze from resting too particularly on Miss Pell- 
 ing's face, for the alteration in it was so obvious as to 
 be almost disconcerting at first They spoke of Mr. 
 Binny, and of the approaching marriage, but all the 
 time Mrs. Simpson could not help thinking how well 
 Lillie had repaid Miss Felling what she owed on the 
 score of little Kitchener. It gradually became appar- 
 ent to Mrs. Simpson, as they talked, that this baby, 
 who came so oddly and unwantedly into the Avenue, 
 had made a tremendous difference to the lives of sev- 
 eral people: and thus thinking she was scarcely sur- 
 prised when Miss Felling began to speak of the child. 
 
 "I'm going out to buy a Christmas present for little 
 Kitchener, but he's not going to be called that any more 
 now, of course," she said. "I have a letter in my bag 
 from Brooke, who is now at Scarcliffe again, previous 
 to getting his discharge. At least, he has really got 
 it, but they are now obliged to remain three weeks 
 longer, you know. He wants to send the child some-
 
 302 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 thing, and he thought it had better go through me 
 for ,fear Lillie's husband might not care for any con- 
 nection with the Brooke family." 
 
 "Quite right," said Mrs. Simpson confusedly, not 
 thinking of what she said; then she added: "When 
 does Brooke leave Scarcliffe?" 
 
 "On Monday," said Miss Felling. 
 
 "And will he be coming to see you?" 
 
 "Oh no, he is going to Liverpool," said Miss Felling. 
 
 "Then we may never see him again?" pursued Mrs. 
 Simpson. 
 
 "I dare say not," answered Miss Felling. "But I 
 must be off now. I have to get my wedding-dress 
 fitted dark grey, you know. No old ewe dressed 
 lamb fashion for me!" She took a letter from her 
 bag. "You can look at this and let me have it back 
 later, if you like." And she was away after a passing 
 car. 
 
 Mrs. Simpson stood alone on the pavement with the 
 letter in her hand, bumped and jostled by passers-by 
 for quite a long time. At last she began to walk slow- 
 ly towards the station, where she took a ticket and 
 sent off two telegrams. Then she got into the train, 
 and sat there with her eyes* closed and nervous flushes 
 coming and going on her pale face, until she reached 
 Scarcliffe. 
 
 It was already a little raw and cold when she got 
 out: the best of the day over and a chill mist coming 
 up from sea. She looked eagerly round the station 
 with her heart beating in her throat in a way which 
 made her feel suffocated; but one by one all the peo- 
 ple, and even the porters and station-master filed out, 
 and she was left alone. She sat down on a wooden
 
 WHAT REMAINS 303 
 
 seat damp with sea-mist and looked with straining 
 eyes towards the entrance of the station. Once a sol- 
 dier came in and she jumped up, flushing and trem- 
 bling; but he was a stranger and walked straight 
 into the office on some regimental business. She peered 
 at her watch the minutes were slipping by, and in 
 another hour she must take train home again, or Mr. 
 Simpson and the girls would be in a terrible state of 
 mind. She had wired to Barbara saying she was 
 lunching in the town, at the same time as she had sent 
 the telegram asking Brooke to meet her at Scarcliffe 
 Station; but that meant she must be back by six or 
 seven at latest. 
 
 The sea boom boomed ! beyond the station ; the sun 
 began to set in streaks of wild orange, bleak and deso- 
 late, over the stunted wind-blown trees which she could 
 see from where she stood. A couple of soldiers passed 
 by and she ran after them, but was too exhausted to 
 speak when she reached them. They turned round and 
 saw the desperate entreaty of her look and her hand 
 pressed to her side. 
 
 "Take time, Ma," they said kindly. "What is it?" 
 
 She drew out Brooke's letter with fingers that shook 
 so they would scarcely hold. "Do you do you hap- 
 pen to know a man called Brooke ?" And she gave his 
 regiment and number. 
 
 "No; I'm sorry. He doesn't belong to our lot," 
 said one soldier. 
 
 "They're on the Flodmouth road, I believe," said 
 the other. "You'd best walk that way, and you may 
 meet him coming. It's Saturday. He'll very like be 
 out early." They paused, reluctant to leave her for 
 they knew trouble when they saw it. "I expect you'll
 
 304 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 meet him; there isn't but one road to his camp," they 
 said, and moved slowly away. 
 
 She turned from them and plodded on, her heart 
 thudding suffocatingly against her ribs ; but she did not 
 care. She would probably miss the train, but she did 
 not care about that now either. She was going to see 
 Brooke. If she died for it, she was going to speak to 
 him. 
 
 The way led past houses until she came to the be- 
 ginning of the open country, which looked inexpres- 
 sibly dreary and forlorn, with the road deep in mud 
 and the trees and hedges silent and dim. Every step 
 was an effort, but she would not own herself beaten. 
 At last she saw Brooke's unmistakable figure coming 
 swiftly towards her and she sat down on a stone heap 
 by the roadside because her knees would not support 
 her any longer. He was hurrying by, not noticing her 
 huddled figure in the waning light, when she called 
 out to him and he stopped short. 
 
 "You here, Mrs. Simpson?" 
 
 With an immense effort she pulled herself together 
 and went towards him. Just so, if she could, would 
 she have risen from her dying bed to fight for her 
 daughter's happiness. 
 
 "You got my wire?" she said. 
 
 "No. They are sometimes rather slow now. I 
 must have left camp before it came," he said, staring at 
 her in bewilderment. 
 
 "I asked you to meet me at the station," she an- 
 swered; "I wanted to see you before you left this part 
 of England. I thought you might be going off to 
 Canada." 
 
 "Yes?" he said.
 
 WHAT REMAINS 305 
 
 "And I had to see you first." She moistened her 
 dry lips with her tongue. "Barbara . . . Bar- 
 bara ..." She could not continue. 
 
 A fire leapt into his eyes. 
 
 "Has Barbara sent you? Does she want to whistle 
 me back again for a while? Then I tell you I'm not 
 having any. I've had enough." 
 
 "She doesn't know. I didn't tell her I was coming," 
 said Mrs. Simpson. "Only only she is so miserable." 
 And the poor woman began to cry softly. 
 
 "She should have thought of that before," said 
 Brooke grimly. "It's no good, Mrs. Simpson. If you 
 knew exactly the way I have been treated you would 
 not expect it of me." 
 
 "Don't you know why she did it?" said Mrs. Simp- 
 son, wiping her eyes. 
 
 "No doubt she thought it wasn't good enough when 
 it came to the point," said Brooke. "She was like 
 plenty of other girls; she liked the fun but she didn't 
 like paying for it. Well, she's not going to get any 
 more fun out of me." 
 
 Mrs. Simpson shook her head, smiling; it com- 
 forted her in some subtle way that she could still see 
 so much further into her girl's thoughts than this man 
 whom Barbara loved better than herself. 
 
 "She gave you up because of me. I am delicate, as 
 you know, and we have moved into a smaller house 
 where we can keep no servant. Elsie is not strong 
 either. Poor Barbara felt she could not turn her 
 back on us." 
 
 "She might have seen all that before. The circum- 
 stances did not change much after she knew me," said 
 Brooke stubbornly.
 
 3o6 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 "No. She ought not to have gone so far and then 
 thrown you over." Mrs. Simpson paused and added 
 with a great effort, suddenly weeping again : "Oh, she 
 wanted you so, she couldn't help it and then she gave 
 you up for my sake. How am I going to live, and see 
 her going about every day, and feel it is I who have 
 ruined her happiness? I can't bear it. I can't bear 
 it. I have borne a lot in my life, but I can't bear 
 this." 
 
 Brooke was touched by her desperate sincerity in 
 spite of himself. 
 
 "How do you know all this ?" he said gravely. "Did 
 Barbara tell you?" 
 
 "Tell me !" She looked at him almost triumphantly 
 smiling through her tears. "As if a mother needed 
 telling!" 
 
 He walked away from her down the road for a few 
 paces, then back again, a thousand memories thronging 
 into his mind. He remembered the freshness of Bar- 
 bara's lips against his own, the sensation of her young 
 body in his arms and yet, after all that, she had 
 thrown him over. No, he could not believe in her any 
 more. 
 
 He stopped before Mrs. Simpson and said gently 
 enough : "I'm sorry. But it is no use beginning the 
 whole thing over again. I can't believe after what 
 passed between us that she would throw me over for 
 such a reason." 
 
 "Canada is so far," urged Mrs. Simpson. "I am 
 sure she thought of that." 
 
 "But I offered to remain in England. That was 
 no excuse." 
 
 "You did?"
 
 WHAT REMAINS 307 
 
 Mrs. Simpson stood quite still, her eyes fixed on 
 him, unseeing, her mind working. At last she cried : 
 "So that's it. Poor Barbara! Poor little Barbara!" 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "Mean? Why, do you think she would ruin your 
 life by making you remain in England with a useless 
 arm and no prospects whatever? Not if she loved 
 you as I think she does; she'd rather break her own 
 heart." 
 
 "Why couldn't she say so then ?" he persisted. 
 
 "And spoil it all? No; she was going to give you 
 a fresh start after your fighting and all your handi- 
 caps in life ; nothing left to clog you from behind. She 
 doesn't do things by halves. It was like our Barbara." 
 
 He stood looking down the dreary road which grew 
 more and more indistinct; at last he looked at Mrs. 
 Simpson. 
 
 "You're right," he said. "I suppose it was like our 
 Barbara. Well, I can stay in England now." 
 
 For a moment Mrs. Simpson faltered ; she felt phys- 
 ically unable to start a fresh fight on this issue, but it 
 had to be, if Barbara was to be happy. 
 
 "You and I," she said, smiling at him with white 
 lips, "must just put our heads together and do what 
 is best for her. She has, perhaps, become a little 
 excited and overstrung with the pressure of the war. 
 She has seen everybody giving up, until she is ready to 
 sacrifice her happiness and yours and mine as well. 
 But we mustn't let her. She is just suited for a free 
 life out there with you, and she will help you to reap 
 the result of all your hard work before the war. I 
 can be perfectly, perfectly happy thinking of you two 
 in Canada among your orchards and fruit-fields, but
 
 308 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 I should be miserable to see you doing unsuitable work 
 and living in a narrow street. So you and Barbara 
 and I would all be less happy than we need; and all 
 for nothing." 
 
 He looked down at her eager face, dimly under- 
 standing the passion of mother-love which urged her 
 on; he even vaguely felt, without putting his feeling 
 into thoughts, that it could drive her just so into a 
 burning fiery furnace; with that same high look and 
 nervous smile. And he acknowledged this in his 
 reply. 
 
 "Very well/' he said. "I'll do ~?hat you think 
 best." 
 
 But he thought it an odd thing that instead of be- 
 ing invigorated by this announcement as he expected, 
 she should drop suddenly upon the stone heap. Her 
 faintness soon passed, however, and she rose and 
 walked slowly with him in the direction of the railway 
 station. 
 
 On arriving home she went straight to bed without 
 giving any information beyond the rather misleading 
 statement that she had been with Miss Felling. But 
 next morning when the extremity of her exhaustion 
 had passed off she told Mr. Simpson all that had taken 
 place. They were in bed at the time, and Mr. Simpson 
 started up to say vehemently: "Never heard of such 
 tomfoolery in my life I You might have died on such 
 an expedition," for his first thought was for his wife. 
 But immediately afterwards he said: "Barbara has 
 been a good girl : she thought of you before herself. 
 We're lucky to have such children, whatever other 
 troubles we have."
 
 WHAT REMAINS 309 
 
 "We are indeed, Sam." And she saw radiantly the 
 joy their children had brought and forgot the sorrow. 
 
 "All the same, I don't know how you will manage 
 without Barbara in the house, especially now Elsie is 
 going away," he said. 
 
 "Oh, I am getting stronger again and shall no doubt 
 be perfectly well in a year or two," said Mrs. Simp- 
 son. "A little more housework will do me good, take 
 my thoughts off." 
 
 "Well, perhaps it may," said Mr. Simpson doubt- 
 fully. "We shall have to see. what can be managed. 
 The war may be over soon and my business come back 
 again," he concluded, beginning to talk himself into 
 the optimistic view as usual. 
 
 But Barbara was not so easily convinced, and after 
 the first burst of surprise and happiness she began to 
 dwell again on her mother's health. At last she men- 
 tioned something of what the doctor had said. 
 
 "It was that time you got ill because I left you to 
 go to Scarcliffe," she said. "He was very angry with 
 me for leaving you to do all the work." 
 
 "Oh, I know he was; and that made him speak as 
 he did," responded Mrs. Simpson. "He got the silly 
 idea that you were a selfish daughter who needed 
 frightening with proper attention; but he has assured 
 me over and over again that I shall be as strong as ever 
 in a year or two." 
 
 "I wish I could ask him," said Barbara, still not 
 satisfied. 
 
 "Well, you can when he comes back from the Front," 
 said Mrs. Simpson. "Meantime, you'll perhaps con- 
 tinue to believe your own Mother." 
 
 So in the end Barbara allowed herself to believe her
 
 3 io THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 mother as she had always done; and the next day 
 Brooke came to Flodmouth 
 
 It was late afternoon when he arrived, and Barbara 
 walked home with him from the station along the 
 slippery pavements covered with the greasy mud that 
 seldom quite dries in Flodmouth at this time of year. 
 Sailors, soldiers, girls tired but gay after their day's 
 work, school-children running riotously, newsboys 
 hawking papers all these ebbed and flowed round the 
 lovers, who remained unconscious of them and yet 
 were aware of a jolly stir of life which made their own 
 joy more secret and intimate. This was a fruition 
 as with all lovers of childhood's pretty glee in "talk- 
 ing secrets." And it mattered as little to Barbara and 
 Julian what the secret was so long as they alone shared 
 it. They were in that state of divine folly when it 
 was most rapturously sweet to mumble to each other 
 during a block at a street corner: "Do you see that 
 woman's hat, Julian?" 
 
 "Yes, Barbara, I shall not let you have one like 
 that when we are married." 
 
 Married! And immediately the word set joy-bells 
 ringing and clashing all over the world or at least 
 they felt it to be so as they clung together in crossing 
 the road. They had such a delightful sense of safety, 
 of belonging to each other. 
 
 But these things can never be told at the time by 
 true lovers, and Brooke just said fervently: "We'll 
 spend our honeymoon at Cheltenham. We must take 
 lodgings in an old house like the one we went into 
 that afternoon. But you'll be my wife this time 
 my own wife. Will you go there, Barbara?"
 
 WHAT REMAINS 311 
 
 "Yes." She paused a moment. "Oh, Julian, I 
 can't believe it yet. It seems like a dream, when I 
 think how miserable I was only on Saturday morning." 
 
 He pressed her arm, looking down at her rather 
 gravely 
 
 "It shall not be my fault if you are miserable any 
 more so long as you live," he said. 
 
 "I can't be if I have you," said Barbara. 
 
 "No!" he answered. "We can never be really un- 
 happy now, whatever happens, so long as we have each 
 other." 
 
 Thus wrapped warmly in their dream, so that the 
 cold realities could not come near them, they turned 
 off the main road into the little, dull streets that lay 
 near Barbara's home. They talked of Canada until 
 they saw, instead of the grimy, narrow houses, great 
 vistas of wind-swept sky and flowery orchards always 
 in the sunshine, and there was a straight road running 
 through it all which was their own lives. The sounds 
 of Flodmouth remained quite unnoticed, as usual, but 
 after a while they gave to Barbara's thoughts the sort 
 of tenderness the exile feels when hearing songs, not 
 beautiful in themselves, which have been known long 
 and may never be heard any more. She was aware of 
 a great kindness for the town where she was born. 
 
 But it was only late in the evening when the pleasant 
 family meal was over and the lovers were alone, that 
 they fully realised the depth of their love for each 
 other. They had so suffered each for the other that 
 every word of love and every caress was like some- 
 thing given back to them which they had thought to 
 have lost for ever.
 
 312 THE SILENT LEGION 
 
 When the young people had gone to bed, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Simpson sat silently before the fire, for they were 
 not young and they were tired. 
 
 After a while Mr. Simpson said, bestirring himself : 
 "I think Barbara has chosen the right one." 
 
 "Yes; it's nice to see them so happy," said Mrs. 
 Simpson. 
 
 "And we are very comfortable here," said Mr. Simp- 
 son, unconsciously answering something wistful in his 
 wife's voice. "Oh, we shall be as snug as a bug in a 
 rug here." 
 
 "Yes, you can so soon get this room nice and warm," 
 said Mrs. Simpson. "That is a great thing when people 
 are growing old like you and me, Sam." 
 
 "Of course it is. We shouldn't want large rooms 
 for just us two even if we could afford them. The 
 children all gone " 
 
 "No, this house is exactly the thing for us now." 
 
 They were silent again, both thinking of Jim; they 
 were able to look with hope and joy through the win- 
 dow their boy had left open. 
 
 And above them the banner floated. 
 
 THE END
 
 THE NOVELS OF 
 
 MARY ROBERTS RINEHART 
 
 May be hart wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. 
 
 "K." Illustrated. 
 
 K. LeMoyne, famous surgeon, drops out of the world that 
 has known him, and goes to live in a little town where 
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 nurse. The joys and troubles of their young love are told 
 with that keen and sympathetic appreciation which ha& 
 made the author famous. 
 
 THE MAN IN LOWER TEN. 
 Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy. 
 
 An absorbing detective story woven around the mysteri- 
 ous death of the "Man in Lower Ten." The strongest 
 elements of Mrs. Rinehart's success are found in this book. 
 
 WHEN A MAN MARRIES. 
 
 Illustrated by Harrison Fisher and Mayo Bunker. 
 
 A young artist, whose wife had recently divorced him, 
 finds that his aunt is soon to visit him. The aunt, who 
 contributes to the family income and who has never seen 
 the wife, knows nothing of the domestic upheaval. How 
 the young man met the situation is humorously and most 
 entertainingly told. 
 
 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE. Illus. by Lester Ralph. 
 
 The summer occupants of "Sunnyside" find the dead 
 body of Arnold Armstrong, the son of the owner, on the cir- 
 cular staircase. Following the murder a bank failure is an- 
 nounced. Around these two events is woven a plot of 
 absorbing interest. 
 
 THE STREET OF SEVEN STARS. 
 Illustrated (Photo Play Edition.) 
 
 Harmony Wells, studying in Vienna to be a great vio- 
 linist, suddenly realizes that her money is almost gone. She 
 meets a young ambitious doctor who offers her chivalry and 
 sympathy, and together with world-worn Dr. Anna and 
 Jimmie, the waif, they share their love and slender means. 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
 
 BOOTH TARKINGTON'S 
 NOVELS 
 
 May ba had wherever books are sold. Ask'for Grosset & Dunlap's list 
 
 SEVENTEEN. Illustrated by Arthur William Brown. 
 
 No one but the creator of Penrod could have portrayed 
 the immortal young people of this story. Its humor is irre- 
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 Seventeen. 
 
 PENROD. Illustrated by Gordon Grant. 
 
 This is a picture of a boy's heart, full of the lovable, hu- 
 morous, tragic things which are locked secrets to most older 
 folks. It is a finished, exquisite work. 
 
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 Like " Penrod " and " Seventeen," this book contains 
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 Bibbs Sheridan is a dreamy, imaginative youth, who re- 
 volts against his father's plans for him to be a servitor of 
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 failure to success. 
 
 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA. Frontispiece. 
 
 A story of love and politics, more especially a picture of 
 a country editor's life in Indiana, but the charm of the book 
 lies in the love interest. 
 
 THE FLIRT. Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood. 
 
 The " Flirt," the younger of two sisters, breaks one girl's 
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 worthy one to marry her sister. 
 
 Aak for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction 
 
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 This book has a fairy-story touch, [counterbalanced by 
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 SATURDAY'S CHILD. 
 Frontispiece by F. Graham Cootes. 
 
 Out on the Pacific coast a normal girl, obscure and lovely, 
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 Illustrated by Lucius H. Hitchcock. 
 
 The story of a sensible woman who~keeps within her 
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 Frontispiece by Allan Gilbert. 
 
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 A very hu norous story, The hero, an independent and vigorous 
 thinker, sees life, and tells about it in a very unconventional way. 
 SIDE-STEPPING WITH SHORTY. 
 Illustrated by Francis Vaux Wilson. 
 
 Twenty skits, presenting people with their foibles, Sympathy 
 with human nature and an abounding sense of humor are the requi- 
 sites for "side-stepping with Shorty." 
 SHORTY McCABE ON THE JOB. 
 Illustrated by Francis Vaux Wilson. 
 
 Shorty McCabe reappears with his figures of speech revamped 
 right up to the minute. He aids in the right distribution of a 
 "consaience fund," and gives joy to all concerned. 
 SHORTY McCABE'S ODD NUMBERS, 
 Illustrated by Francis Vaux Wilson. 
 
 These further chronicles of Shorty McCabe tell of his studio for 
 physical culture, and of his experiences both on the East side and at 
 swell yachting parties. 
 TORCHY. Illus, by Geo. Biehm and Jas. Montgomery Flagg. 
 
 A red-headed office boy, overflowing with wit and wisdom pe- 
 culiar to the youths reared on the sidewalks of New York, tells the 
 story of his experiences. 
 TRYING OUT TORCHY. Illustrated by F. Foster Lincoln. 
 
 Torchy is just as deliriously funny in these stories as he was in 
 the previous book. 
 ON WITH TORCHY. Illustrated by F. Foster Lincoln. 
 
 Torchy falls desperately in love with "the only girl that ever 
 was," but that young society woman's aunt tries to keep the young 
 people apart, which brings about many hilariously funny situations 
 TORCHY, PRIVATE SEC. Illustrated by F. Foster Lincoln. 
 
 Torchy rises from the position of office boy to that of secretary 
 for the Corrugated Iron Company. The story is full of huraor and 
 Infectious American slang. , 
 
 WILT THOU TORCHY. Illus. by F. Snapp and A. W. Brown. 
 
 Torchy goes on a treasure search expedition to the Florida West 
 Coast, in company with a group of friends of the Corrugated Trust 
 and with his friend's aunt, on which trip Torchy wins the aunt's 
 permission to place an engagement ring on Vee's finger. 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
 
 JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD'S 
 
 STORIES OF ADVENTURE 
 
 May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Buolap's list 
 
 KAZAN 
 
 The tale of a " quarter-strain wolf and three-quarters husky ' ' 
 torn between the call of the human and his wild mate. 
 
 BAREE, SON OF KAZAN 
 
 The story of the son of the blind Grey Wolf and the gallant 
 part he played in the lives of a man and a woman. 
 
 THE COURAGE OF CAPTAIN PLUM 
 
 The story of the King of Beaver Island, a Mormon colony, 
 and his battle with Captain Plum. 
 THE DANGER TRAIL 
 
 A tale of snow, of love, of Indian vengeance, and a mystery 
 of the North. 
 
 THE HUNTED WOMAN 
 
 A tale of the "end of the line," and of a great fight in the 
 "valley of gold" for a woman. 
 THE FLOWER OF THE NORTH 
 
 The story of Fort o' God, where the wild flavor of the wilder- 
 ness is blended with the courtly atmosphere of France. 
 THE GRIZZLY KING 
 
 The story of Thor, the big grizzly who lived in a valley where 
 man had never come. ^ 
 
 ISOBEL 
 
 A love story of the Far North. 
 THE WOLF HUNTERS 
 
 A thrilling tale of adventure in the Canadian wilderness. 
 THE GOLD HUNTERS 
 
 The story of adventure in the Hudson Bay wilds. 
 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 Filled with exciting incidents in the land of itrong men and 
 women. 
 
 BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY 
 
 A thrilling story of the Far North, The great Photoplay was 
 Made from this book. 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
 
 RALPH CONNOR'S STORIES 
 
 OF THE NORTHWEST 
 
 May be had wherever books ire sold. Ask for Grossat & Dunlap's list 
 
 The clean-hearted, strong-limbed man of the West leaves 
 his hills and forests to fight the battle for freedom in the 
 old world. 
 BLACK ROCK 
 
 A story of strong men in the mountains of the West. 
 THE SKY PILOT 
 
 A story of cowboy life, abounding in the freshest humor, 
 the truest tenderness and the finest courage. 
 THE PROSPECTOR 
 
 A tale of the foothills and of the man who came to them 
 to lend a hand to the lonely men and women who needed a 
 protector. 
 
 THE MAN FROM GLENGARRY 
 
 This narrative brings us into contact with elemental and 
 volcanic human nature and with a hero whose power breathes 
 from every word. 
 GLENGARRY SCHOOL DAYS 
 
 In this rough country of Glengarry, Ralph Connor has 
 found human nature in the rough. 
 THE DOCTOR 
 
 The story of a "preacher-doctor" whom big men and 
 reckless men loved for hia unselfish life among them. 
 THE FOREIGNER 
 
 A tale of the Saskatchewan and of a " foreigner " who 
 made a brave and winning fight for manhood and love. 
 CORPORAL CAMERON 
 
 This splendid type of the upright, out-of-door man about 
 which Ralph Connor builds all his stories, appears again in 
 this book. 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, 'NEW YORK
 
 THE NOVELS OF 
 GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL LUTZ 
 
 May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for G'rosset & Dunlap's list. 
 
 THE BEST MAN 
 
 Through a strange series of adventures a young man finds 
 himself propelled up the aisle of a church and married to a 
 strange girl. 
 
 A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 On her way West the heroine steps off by mistake at a lonely 
 watertank into a maze of thrilling events. 
 
 THE ENCHANTED BARN 
 
 Every member of the family will enjoy this spirited chronicle 
 of a young girl's resourcefulness and pluck, and the secret of 
 the ' ' enchanted ' ' barn. 
 
 TH-E WITNESS 
 
 The fascinating story of the enormous change an incident 
 wrought in a man's life. 
 
 MARCIA SCHUYLER 
 
 A picture of ideal girlhood set in the time of full skirts and 
 poke bonnets. 
 
 LO, MICHAEL ! 
 
 A story of unfailing appeal to all who love and understand boys. 
 THE MAN OF THE DESERT 
 
 An intensely moving love story of a man of the desert and a 
 girl of the East pictured against the background of the Far West. 
 
 PHOEBE DEANE 
 
 A tense and charming love story, told with a grace and a fer- 
 vor with which only Mrs. Lutz could tell it. 
 
 DAWN OF THE MORNING 
 
 A romance of the last century with all of its old-fashioned 
 charm. A companion volume to ' ' Marcia Schuyler ' ' and 
 "Phoebe Deane." 
 
 Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
 
 " STORM COUNTRY " BOOKS BY 
 
 GRACE MILLER WHITE 
 
 Kay be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grossst & Dtinlap's list. 
 
 JUDY OF ROGUES' HARBOR 
 
 Judy's untutored ideas of God, her love of wild things, 
 her faith in life are quite as inspiring as those of Tess. 
 Her faith and sincerity catch at your heart strings. This 
 book has all of the mystery and tense action of the other 
 Storm Country books. 
 
 TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY 
 
 It was as Tess, beautiful, wild, impetuous, that Mary 
 Pickford made her reputation as a motion picture actress. 
 How love acts upon a temperament such as hers a tem- 
 perament that makes a woman an angel or an outcast, ac- 
 cording to the character of the man she loves is the 
 theme of the story. 
 
 THE SECRET OF THE STORM COUNTRY 
 
 The sequel to " Tess of the Storm Country," with the 
 same wild background, with its half-gypsy We of the squat- 
 ters tempestuous, passionate, brooding. Tess learns the 
 " secret " of her birth and finds happiness and love through 
 her boundless faith in life. 
 
 FROM THE VALLEY OF THE MISSING 
 
 A haunting story with its scene laid near the country 
 familiar to readers of " Tess of the Storm Country." 
 
 ROSE O' PARADISE 
 
 " Jinny" Singleton, wild, lovely, lonely, but with a pas- ( 
 sionate yearning for music, grows up in the house of Lafe 
 Grandoken, a crippled cobbler of the Storm Country. Her 
 romance is full of power and glory and tenderness. 
 
 Ak for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
 
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