He had not noticed the door open. She was standing before him. She drew his face down to her and kissed him. “Thank you,” she whispered, “for one of the happiest days of my life.” He held her to him for a while without speaking. He could feel the beating of her heart. “There is something I want to tell you,” he said. She put a hand upon his lips. “I know,” she answered. “In three minutes time. Then you shall tell me.” They stood with their arms round one another till the old French clock upon the mantelpiece had softly chimed the twelve hours. Then she released him, and seating herself in her usual chair, looked at him and waited. CHAPTER XVIII He had not asked her for an answer. She had promised to think it out. She might wish to talk it over with Jim. She and Jim had always been very near to one another. And there were the children to be consulted. She was to be quite free to choose. Everything would be arranged according to her decision. He had said nothing to persuade her--unless he had hoped that by explaining to her his own reasons he might influence her,--and beyond a few questions she had remained a silent listener. It was shamefacedly, as one confessing a guilty secret, that he had told her. From the tones of his voice, the look in his eyes, she had read his unconscious pleading to her to come with him. But whether she went with him or stayed behind would make no difference to his going. It was that had hardened her. To a certain extent she had been prepared. Ever since the child John’s death she had felt the change that was taking place in him. There was an Anthony she did not know, dimly associated in her mind with that lover of her dream who standing by the latchet gate had beckoned to her, and from whom she had hidden herself, afraid. She had set herself to turn his thoughts aside towards social reform, philanthropy. It was with this idea she had urged him to throw himself into public affairs, to prepare for Parliament. She had hoped for that. There she could have helped him. It would have satisfied her own craving to be doing something herself. And then the war had engulfed them, obliterating all other horizons: it had left her nothing but her animal emotions. Her boy’s life! She could think of nothing else. Norah was in France: and she also was in the danger zone. The need of work obsessed her. She had found a rambling old house, far away upon the moors, and had converted it into a convalescent hospital.