Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/387

 "I'd forgotten"

She rang the bell. The whole house seemed to be in her hands.

"O, can you manage some lunch? Mr. Sorrell has had nothing."

The woman in black disappeared, and lunch was forthcoming. She ate in order to make him eat, and at the end of the meal she continued her persuasion.

"Go and lie down,—or read. I am going round again to the hospital. No need for you to have to face that door."

His eyes lit up for a moment.

"How you understand! I'm getting a bit old. I haven't the nerve I used to have."

"That's not quite true," she said gently; "you had the courage to go out for all or nothing. I'm going now."

She bent down and kissed his forehead.

"I'm willing—hard, willing—and feeling. I am one of those who believes that it helps."

Molly returned after dark. It was raining now, and she had walked in the wind and the rain, and her face was wet with a little glistening moisture. Yes, a face of the trenches, of war, of a set and bitter courage, so Sorrell thought, but there was a gleam too of something else.

She found him hunched over the fire as though the very marrow of him was cold. Yes, she had been with Kit, not talking, but sitting with him and holding his hand.

"The temperature is down a little."

"What do they say?"

"Not much. But Kit is fighting, and fighting hard. Have you had any tea?"

No, Sorrell had not had tea. He got up mechanically and rang the bell, and when the woman in black answered it he appeared to have forgotten what he had rung for. He was staring at the fire.

The two women exchanged looks.

"Can you manage some tea!"

"Of course, Miss."

The woman in black had placed Molly by a photograph