The War-Workers

"Lovely. Just the night for Zeppelins."

Miss Henderson spoke from the pessimism of approaching influenza, but it happened that she was right. The first air raid over Questerham took place that night.

The work was rapidly lessening towards eleven o'clock, when Captain Trevellyan came into the hall. He stood for an instant gazing round him reflectively, then said to Grace: "Who is in command here?"

"Mrs. Willoughby, when Miss Vivian isn't here."

"I see, thank you."

Looking very doubtful, he sought Lesbia, who was preparing to discard her overall and to take her departure with the Pekinese.

"Johnnie! How too sweet of you to turn up just in time to see me home! My Lewis hates my going back alone in the dark; we've very nearly quarrelled over it already."

"The fact is," said Trevellyan, wondering if Mrs. Willoughby were the sort of person to have hysterics, "that there's been a telephone warning to say an air-raid is on, just over Staningham. They're heading this way, so we may hear a gun or two, you know; some of our machines are in pursuit."

He gazed anxiously at Lesbia, whom he characteristically supposed to be about either to burst into tears or to threaten a fainting fit.

The ideas of Captain Trevellyan were perhaps not much more advanced than those of Lady Vivian's secretary.

But Mrs. Willoughby discounted his solicitude, at least on one score, in a moment.

"Zepps!" she screamed excitedly. "How too thrilling! Can I possibly get on to the roof, I wonder? I've never seen one yet."

"Stop!" said the astonished Trevellyan. "You don't realize. They'll be over here in a few minutes, and our machines may be firing at them, besides the guns on the hill; there'll be shrapnel falling."

Mrs. Willoughby tore off her overall and snatched up Puff.

"I must, must see it all!" she declared wildly. "Have you got a pair of field-glasses?"

Trevellyan restrained her forcibly from dashing to the door.

"Mrs. Willoughby, we've got to consider that there are a number of people here, and that they are all in a certain amount of danger – not so much from bombs, though goodness knows they may very well drop one, but from our own shrapnel. Is there a basement?"

"You can't send us to the cellar? My dear boy, I, for one, refuse to go. We're not children, and we're not afraid. We're Englishwomen!"

On this superb sentiment Mrs. Willoughby swept into the middle of the hall and announced in penetrating accents that a Zepp raid was on, and had any one got a pair of field-glasses?

There was a momentary outbreak of exclamations all around, and then Captain Trevellyan raised his voice: "Please keep away from the windows. There may be broken glass about."

"Is it dangerous? What are we to do?" gasped Tony, next him. She was rather white.

At the same moment the very distant but unmistakable reverberation of guns became audible.

Trevellyan took instant advantage of the sudden cessation of sound in the room.

"If there is a basement, it would be as well for everybody to go down there, please – just for precaution's sake. And then I'm going to put out these lights." His hand was on the nearest gas-jet as he spoke.

"Nothing will induce me to stir while there's any danger. I can answer for every woman here!" cried Lesbia, with a gesture of noble defiance.

Grace Jones came into the middle of the room.

"Hadn't we better obey orders?" she asked gently. "There is a basement beyond the kitchen."

She held out her hand to Miss Anthony, and they went through the door into the kitchen.

After an instant's hesitation, the other women followed. Trevellyan saw that they had lit a candle, and in a moment he heard them beginning to talk quietly amongst themselves.

A few soldiers in the hall had congregated together, and were talking and laughing. The others made a dash for the door as the firing grew louder, and simultaneously exclaimed: "Here they are!"

The sound of the huge machines far overhead was unmistakable. They could see the shrapnel bursting, and the guns on the hill boomed heavily and intermittently.

"Look!" shrieked Lesbia, almost hurling herself out of the door. "They've got one of them! I can see it blazing!"

Far away, a red spot began to glow, then suddenly revealed the cigar-shaped form in flames, dropping downwards.

"They've got it!" echoed Trevellyan. "Look! it's coming down. Miles away, by this time. I wonder how many of ours are giving chase."

The air was full of whirring, buzzing wings, and very far away a red light in the sky seemed to tell of fire.

Occasional sparks and flashes told of the bursting of shrapnel, but the sounds were dying away rapidly.

"It's over, and, by Jove, we've got him!" shouted Trevellyan, dashing back into the kitchen. Every one was talking at once, Mrs. Willoughby's voice dominating the rest.

"I saw the whole thing too perfectly! At least five of the brutes, and two, if not three, of them in flames! I saw them with my own eyes!" she proclaimed, with more spirit than exactitude. "And where are those poor creatures hiding like rats in the cellar?"

"The noise was awful!" said Tony, shuddering. "It felt as though it were right over our heads. But," she added valiantly, "I do wish we'd seen it all!"

Trevellyan turned to her apologetically. "I'm so sorry. But I really couldn't help it. They sent me down on purpose to see that this place was warned. It was really perfectly splendid of you to go down like that and miss all the fun."

"I was very frightened," she told him honestly, "though I do awfully wish I'd seen it. They must have had a splendid view from the Hostel at the top of the street."

"There was a splendid view from here," said Lesbia cuttingly. "I saw everything there was to be seen."

Trevellyan was looking for Miss Jones.

"Thank you so much for giving them the lead you did," he said to her gratefully. "It was very good of you. I felt such a brute for asking you to do it; but there really is danger, you know, especially from the windows, if shrapnel shatters the glass."

"Oh yes, I know. I wonder," said Grace thoughtfully, "whether they heard it much at Plessing."

"I know. I was thinking of that all the time. Not that she'd be nervous, you know, except on his account."

"It would be dreadful for Sir Piers. Oh, I do hope they didn't hear much of it," said Grace.

One of the men approached her. "If you please, Sister, could you come down into the kitching 'alf a minute?"

Grace went.

Trevellyan watched them all disperse, and escorted Mrs. Willoughby to her tram, wondering if he ought not to see her home.

But Lesbia refused all escort, declaring gallantly that she did not know the meaning of fear, and, anyway, Puffles would protect his missus from any more dreadful, wicked Zepps.

He left her entertaining her tram conductress with a spirited account of all that she had seen, and much that she had not seen, of the raid.

As he turned down Pollard Street again, a soldier with his hand bound up lurched out of the open door of the deserted Canteen.

"Is there any one in there to shut the place up?" Trevellyan asked him.

"One of the ladies is still in there, sir. Beg pardon, sir; she's a bit upset like."

Trevellyan thought of little Miss Anthony, who had owned, with a white face, how much the sound of the guns had frightened her.

He went into the hall. It was dark, but there was a light in the kitchen.

"Who's there?" said John.

"I am. It's all right," replied an enfeebled voice; and he went into the kitchen.

Grace Jones was half leaning and half sitting against the sink, her small face haggard, her hands clutching the only support within reach, the wooden top of a roller-towel.

"I'm afraid you're ill," exclaimed Trevellyan, looking desperately round him for a chair.

"It's all right; please don't wait."

"But it's over now. They brought the brute down. It's miles away by this time."

He multiplied his reassurances.

"No, no; it's not that," gasped Miss Jones, looking whiter than ever.

"There were certainly no casualties over here. We should have seen signs of fire somewhere if they'd dropped a bomb."

"It's not that!" Grace told him desperately.

Trevellyan gazed at her helplessly, and repeated in an obtuse manner: "It's all over now – absolutely safe."

Grace gazed back at him with a wan smile.

"Would you mind going?" she asked him feebly. "I shall be all right in a minute. It's very tiresome, but the sight of – of blood always upsets me like this, and that man had cut his finger rather badly, and I had to do it up. It's only – that."

She put her hands up to her damp forehead as though the effort of speech had brought back the sensation of nausea.

"You're going to faint!" exclaimed Trevellyan. "Let me get some water for you."

"No, I'm not. Oh, do go!"

"I can't leave you like this," protested the bewildered John.

Grace staggered to her feet, and stood holding on to the edge of the sink.

"I'm afraid – I'm only going to be sick," she said with difficulty.

Ten minutes later they locked up the Canteen and went up Pollard Street.

"You see, it had nothing to do with the raid," Grace told him gently. "It was just that poor man bleeding. I've always been like that; it's the only way I'm delicate, because I'm never ill, and I don't ever have nerves. But it is very tiresome. That's why I couldn't go and work in a hospital. I did clerical work in the hospital at home for a little while, but it wasn't any good."

"Bad luck!"

"It is, rather. I hate anybody's knowing about it; that's why I said I'd stay behind and lock up. I knew it was going to happen, and I didn't want any one to be there."

"I'm sorry. I thought it was the raid that had upset you, and that you might be going to faint."

"Nothing so romantic," said Miss Jones regretfully.

But her regrets were as nothing to those of the Hostel when they learnt what had happened.

It was impossible to conceal it from them, since the window of the ground-floor bedroom had been open, and Mrs. Potter and Miss Marsh, leaning from it, and listening eagerly, had heard every word of Captain Trevellyan's final discourse to Miss Jones, and her repeated assurances of being now completely restored.

They flew into the hall to meet her.

"Gracie dear, what has happened to you? Tony was in such a state when she found you hadn't come in with her and the others."

"Was it that beastly raid upset you?"

Grace once more repudiated the raid with as much energy as she could muster.

"You look as white as a sheet, dear! Come into the sitting-room."

Every one was in the sitting-room, including those first back from the Canteen, and the pseudo-invalids who, having been in bed when the raid began, felt that only tea could enable them to face the night, and had hurried down in search of it.

"Oh, Gracie, there you are! I was just going back to see what had become of you," said Tony.

"Miss Vivian's cousin brought her home!" giggled Mrs. Potter. "You know, the Staff Officer one. She's been awfully upset, poor Grace! Turned quite faint, didn't you, dear?"

"But you were so brave!" cried Tony, aghast. "You were all right all the time the raid was on. You didn't mind a bit!"

"Came over you afterwards, I expect, didn't it?" said Miss Delmege kindly. "It's often the case. I'm always perfectly cool myself when anything happens – I was tonight – but I generally suffer for it afterwards. Reaction, I suppose. When I came downstairs after it was all over I was simply shaking, wasn't I, Mrs. Bullivant?"

"Now, it's a funny thing," remarked Miss Henderson, without giving any one time to dwell upon Miss Delmege's personal reminiscences – "it's a funny thing, but I simply didn't feel the least bit of fear. Not for myself, you know. I just thought, well, I hope mother doesn't see any of this – she's got a bit of a heart, you know – but I didn't seem to feel a bit as though I was in any kind of danger myself. Not a bit."

"Now, just sit down, child, and drink up this tea," said Mrs. Bullivant to Grace. "You've not a scrap of colour in your face."

"I'm really all right now, thank you very much," Grace told her as she took the tea gratefully. "And it wasn't anything to do with the raid."

Everybody looked rather disappointed.

"Aren't you well, then, dear? I do hope it isn't another case of influenza."

"I bet I know!" suddenly cried Tony. "It was doing up that man's hand upset you, wasn't it? He cut himself somehow in the excitement and was bleeding like a fountain, poor fellow! I thought you looked rather squeamish while you were doing it, poor thing! but I never thought of its bowling you over like this. Are you one of those people who faint at the sight of blood?"

"I didn't faint," said Grace mildly.

"Jolly near it, I expect, judging by your face now," said Tony critically. "Poor old dear!"

"Did Miss Vivian's cousin come back to find you?" asked Miss Delmege sharply.

"He came into the kitchen while I was still there, and afterwards he helped me to lock up."

"Afterwards?"

A tinge of colour crept into Miss Jones's face.

"I'm afraid you won't think I rose to the occasion at all," she said deprecatingly. "It always does make me rather ill to see blood, though I know it's idiotic, and it was the soldier's hand, not the air-raid a bit, I didn't mind that at all."

"What happened? Were you hysterical?" demanded Miss Delmege, with an inexplicable touch of umbrage in her refined little voice.

"Certainly not," said Grace emphatically. "If you really want to know, I was just sick over the sink."

Miss Jones's damaging revelation horrified the Hostel, no less than the crude manner of its avowal.

"Well," said Miss Henderson, "you really are the limit, Gracie – and a bit over."

"Poor child!" said Mrs. Bullivant kindly. "How dreadful for you! Miss Vivian's cousin and all, too! But, still, it was better than an absolute stranger, perhaps."

"I don't see how you're ever going to face him again, though – really I don't," giggled Tony.

"Poor man! so awful for him, too," minced Miss Delmege. "He must have been too uncomfortable for words."

"Not he," Miss Marsh told her with sudden defiance. "He brought poor Gracie home, and delighted to have the chance. Come on, Gracie, let's go to bed. You look done for."

She had grown very fond of her room-mate, in spite of all that she regretfully looked upon as an absence of propriety in her conduct; and when they were outside the sitting-room door, she said, without troubling to lower her voice: "Don't you mind their nonsense, dear. You couldn't help it, and that Delmege has only got the pip because she hadn't the chance of being brought home by Miss Vivian's cousin herself."

And when they got upstairs she "turned down" Gracie's bed for her, and put her kettle on to the gas-ring, and brought her an extra hot-water bottle.

"There! Good-night, dear, and don't you worry. I think it was splendid of you to tell the truth. Lots of girls would have fibbed, and said they'd fainted, or something highfaluting of that nature. I should myself."

"Thank you so much. You are nice to me," said Grace warmly. She did not look upon the affair herself as being more than a merely unfortunate incident, but she knew that Miss Marsh regarded it as an overwhelming scandal, and was proffering consolation accordingly.

Miss Marsh bent over the bed and tucked her in. "I'll turn out the gas, and you must go straight to sleep. It's frightfully late. And look here, Gracie, when we're alone together up here, I'd like you to call me Dora, if you will. It's my name, you know."

X

"That settles it," said Char. "If this sort of thing is going to happen, I must be there. With no definite organization, there might be a panic next time an air-raid takes place. According to Mrs. Willoughby, every one made a dash for the basement, as it was. Women are such fools when one leaves them to themselves!"

It was part of Char's policy always to disparage her own sex. It threw into greater relief the contrast which she knew to exist between herself and the majority of women-workers.

She was speaking to Miss Bruce, but, rather to her annoyance, Lady Vivian came into the room in time to overhear her.

"Surely the basement was the most sensible place to dash for?" she inquired, never able to resist an opportunity of attacking her offspring's arrogantly expressed opinions. "As for your being there, in my opinion, it's a very good thing you weren't. You'd only have drilled the poor things out of their senses, which would have taken up more valuable space in the basement."

"I should not have been in the basement," returned Char superbly.

"Then you might have been blown into bits, my dear, unless, as Director of the Midland Supply Depôt, all enemy aircraft has orders to respect your person?"

Joanna was jeering quite good-humouredly, as she generally did, and even Miss Bruce saw some exaggeration in the white, tense silence with which Char received these indifferent pleasantries.

"I hear the car," said the secretary, anxious to create a diversion.

"Miss Jones. Mother, I'm going through the work with her in here this morning. There's no fire in the morning-room."

"Very well, Char. You won't disturb me in the least."

"I thought you were going to sit with father."

"Not yet. Besides, I want to see Miss Jones."

Char sighed patiently. At Plessing only the faithful Miss Bruce gave her work that consideration to which she had become accustomed at the office. She was finding Plessing almost intolerable. There were no interviews, the telephone-bell was not allowed to ring, no one urged her not to neglect the substantial meals which were served for her with the greatest regularity, and Miss Jones daily assured her, with perfect placidity, that the whole work at the office was progressing with complete success without her.

The Director of the Midland Supply Depôt was completely shorn of her glory.

And what was she doing, Char indignantly asked herself, while the organization which she had practically made was thus abandoned to its own resources?

Nothing.

She paid a purely perfunctory visit, morning and evening, to Sir Piers, who hardly ever heard what she said to him, and had the rest of the day at her own disposal. She had no share in the work of nursing, which was divided between Lady Vivian and the professional nurse who had come from London, and when she rather indignantly demanded of Dr. Prince whether he did not think that he had better utilize her hospital experience at Plessing, the doctor merely replied dryly: "Hospital experience, as you call it, acquired on paper only, won't help you much here, or anybody else either. Nurse Williams can do all that's necessary, and Sir Piers doesn't want any one but Lady Vivian when he's awake."

"That's perfectly true," said Char sharply, "and that's why I can't help thinking it's rather waste of time for an able-bodied woman with a certain amount of brains to remain here unoccupied when there is so much to be done elsewhere."

"You can take your mother for a walk every day. She is wise enough to take an hour's exercise every afternoon, and Miss Bruce can't be much of a companion. Besides," maliciously added the doctor, who had suffered considerably under the Central Depôt's arbitrary interference with his Hospital work, "it'll do you a lot of good to keep quiet for six months or so. You've been suffering from overstrain, whether you know it or not, and your work will be all the better for some relaxation. I assure you, we haven't had a wrong enclosure sent us from the office since you left."

Dr. Prince walked off very triumphantly after this parting gibe.

"Serve her right!" he thought to himself. "Conceited monkey! Perhaps I shall get station transport for my cases properly put through now, without her interference. Hospital experience, indeed!"

"Of course," said Char to Miss Bruce, "a country doctor is naturally jealous of the R.A.M.C. men who've come to the fore. He's never forgiven me for getting his Hospital run on a proper military basis."

"I'm sure he really admires your splendid work, dear, as anybody must, but he's known you ever since you were tiny, so I suppose he allows himself a certain amount of freedom."

Char supposed so too, sombrely enough, and prepared herself to extract from Miss Jones an account of panic at the Canteen on the occasion of the air-raid which should justify her in returning to her post, even in the eyes of Dr. Prince.

Needless to say, Miss Jones was unsatisfactory.

"Oh no; there wasn't any sort of panic at all. Captain Trevellyan was there, and asked us to go to the basement, and we just went."

"John tells me that they were perfectly splendid, all of them, and that you set the first example," said Joanna cordially.

"The whole thing didn't last ten minutes," Grace told them. "We heard all the noise, but didn't see anything. The men did, of course. They saw the Zeppelin come down in the far distance. But by the time we came out there was nothing. It was all over."

"What a shame!" exclaimed Joanna.

"I must institute a proper drill for air-raid alarms," said Char, unsmiling. "That sort of haphazard sauve qui peut is most unofficial. I shall see about it directly I get back."

Joanna put up her lorgnon and looked at her daughter.

She did not speak, but something in her expression made Char exclaim very decisively: "I can't desert my post at a time like this. Everybody must see that unless I had any extremely definite call elsewhere, my place is at the Depôt. The work is suffering horribly from this piecemeal fashion of doing things."

She indicated Grace and her sheaf of bulging envelopes with a gesture of condemnation.

Lady Vivian glanced from her daughter's set face to Grace Jones, whose eyes were cast down. Then she left the room without speaking.

Char looked at her secretary, and said, very slowly and stiffly: "I shall probably be back at the office tomorrow or Monday, Miss Jones. You may tell the staff. Sir Piers's condition is not likely to alter at present, and, in any case, the work comes before any personal considerations at a time like this."

There was silence.

"Miss Jones!" said Char sharply.

Miss Jones lifted her great grey eyes and looked straight at the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt.

She was not at all an eloquent person, but perceptions much less acute than those of Char Vivian could have felt the intense, almost violent hostility with which the atmosphere vibrated.

Then Grace dropped her eyes and said gently and coldly, in a tone as remote as it was impersonal: "Yes, Miss Vivian."

The encounter had been a wordless one, and, indeed, Char knew that she would never have allowed it to become anything else. The relative positions of the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt and one of her staff were far too clearly defined in her mind for that. But it left in her a sort of cold, still anger, as well as an invincible determination.

That night Trevellyan dined at Plessing.

Lady Vivian did not come downstairs until dinner was over and they were in the drawing-room. Then she took out some needlework. Sir Piers had always liked to see her pretty hands working at what he generically called "embroidery."

She sat down under the big standard lamp.

Disquiet was in the air, and Char knew that only the unperceptive Trevellyan was unaware of an impending crisis. Miss Bruce fidgeted with the fire-irons, dropped them, and apologized. As though a spell had been broken, Joanna looked up and spoke.

"Char, I don't know if you realize that there can be no question of your returning to the office tomorrow – or at all, for the present."

The attack had opened.

Char was glad of it, although a flare of resentment passed through her mind that her mother should have sought a cowardly protection from a possible scene in the presence of John Trevellyan.

"Why not?" she added quietly. "My father is no worse?"

"He is exactly the same. But I am not going to risk any shock or vexation to him. He asked me this afternoon if you were at home, and was glad when I said yes. You know he never liked your doing this excessive amount of work."

"He never forbade it."

"He is not likely to forbid it. When has he ever forbidden you anything? But he thinks that your place now is at home – which it very obviously is."

"To do what?" asked Char, with rising bitterness, which she did not try to keep out of her voice. "Does he ever ask for me? Am I of the slightest use?"

"He sees you every day, and he might ask for you at any time. He wishes you to remain at home for the present."

"It's not fair, it's not reasonable. I do nothing here. I am of no use. It's not as though he really wanted me. It's simply because you – and he – won't be reminded of the war – of the ghastly horrors going on all round us – won't think of the war, or let it be mentioned. You want to shirk it all – "

"Don't, Char!" said John suddenly. "Don't say things you'll be sorry for afterwards."

"No. I shall not be sorry for speaking the truth. You know it's true, Johnnie."

"True!" said Joanna. "What if it is true? Do you suppose that if I can give him one little hour's comfort by ignoring the war, and keeping every thought of it away from him, I wouldn't do so at any cost? The war isn't your responsibility or mine – your father is."

She rose, and paced rapidly up and down the length of the room. Char had never seen her mother give way to such impetuous agitation before. She eyed her coldly, but strove to speak gently.

"Mother, if it was anything else I'd give in. But I am doing work in Questerham – real, absolutely necessary work – and here – why, I'm not even justifying my existence."

"You're working here. You do a lot every day, going through all those letters and things with Miss Jones," Trevellyan pointed out.

Joanna threw him a quick glance of gratitude.

"Work here, Char, as much as you like," she exclaimed eagerly. "You can have any one you please out here – so long as they don't make a noise," she added hastily.

The expression was infelicitous.

"You talk as though I were a child, and wanted to have other children out here to play with me. Good heavens, mother I do you realize that my work is for the nation, neither more nor less?"

"If I don't, it's not for want of being told," said her mother with sudden dryness.

"It's easy to say that sort of thing, to accuse me of self-complacency in the tiny little part I contribute to an enormous whole."

"It's not that, Char!" cried Joanna hastily. "I don't care if you have megalomania in its acutest form" – Miss Bruce bounded irrepressibly on her chair – "but I will not have your father distressed. That's my one and only concern. Johnnie, help me to make her understand."

"I do understand, mother," said Char. "You would sacrifice everything to the personal question – women always do. But I can't see it like that. The broader issue lies there, under my very eyes, and I can't shirk it."

"Johnnie!" said Joanna despairingly. "Tell her that she's blinding herself."

"Can't you give it up, Char?" he asked her gently. "You can do work here, you know, and let some one else carry on at Questerham."

"Yes, yes, a deputy. Some one who'll be under your orders," breathed Miss Bruce eagerly.

She cordially wished her contribution to the discussion unuttered, however, when it evoked from Johnnie the inspired suggestion: "Miss Jones! Make her your deputy, Char, and the whole thing will go like a house on fire."

Joanna, still pacing the room, gave a quick, short laugh, which made Trevellyan look at her in wondering surprise, and Char in sudden anger.

"May I suggest – " Miss Bruce began timidly, and paused.

"Anything!" said Joanna brusquely.

"Couldn't Dr. Prince tell us whether there is any reason – anything to fear – any danger," faltered Miss Bruce, becoming terribly involved.

Trevellyan came to her rescue.

"You mean whether there is likely to be any immediate change, for worse or for better, in Sir Piers's condition?"

"Of course I couldn't go if my father was in immediate danger," quoth Char impatiently. "But he's not. We've already been told so. He may go on in this state for months and months. And at the end of a telephone! Why, I could be sent for and be back here within an hour."

"I'm not discussing the question from that point of view at all," Joanna told her. "The point is not that you should be at hand in case of any crisis, but simply that he should not be vexed. Your insensate hours of work at the Depôt vex him."

The words sounded oddly trivial, but no one doubted that Joanna was angry, angrier than they had, any of them, ever seen her.

"Look here, Cousin Joanna, can't we settle this later on? There can be no need to arrange it tonight," said John. "Suppose we let the Doctor give the casting vote, as Miss Bruce suggested?"

He felt pretty sure that no vote of Dr. Prince's would ever be exercised in favour of Char's immediate return to the Midland Supply Depôt.

"Dr. Prince is coming here tonight," said Lady Vivian. "He ought to be here any minute now, if it's after nine."

"Ten past," said Miss Bruce, glancing at the clock.

"Neither he nor any one else can convince me that I ought to remain in idleness when every worker in England is needed," said Char.

"My dear Char, you can't run any risks with Sir Piers in his present condition," said John unexpectedly. "That's what we want Dr. Prince to tell us – whether there is any danger to him if you persist in going against his wishes."

Something of condemnation, such as Char had never yet heard in her easy-going cousin's voice, silenced her. She felt bitterly that every one was against her, no one understood.

Then Miss Bruce's hand came out timidly and patted her on the shoulder. Dear old Brucey! Char recognized her fidelity in a sudden spasm of most unwonted gratitude. Brucey at least knew that a real struggle was in progress between Char's sense of patriotism and the pain that it naturally gave her to resist the wishes of the parents whose point of view she could not share.

For the first time since she was a child, Char felt moved to one of her rare demonstrations of affection towards the faithful Miss Bruce. She smiled at her, pain and gratitude mingling in her gaze, and let her hand lie for a moment on the little secretary's.