He went on to the news agency and got the papers, and then, hastily glancing at the headlines for the more obvious news, he tucked the papers under his arm and went slowly back to the Manor by another road than the one by which he had come into the village. There was a field with a hollow where one could lie in shelter and see the whole of the bay and the eastern cliffs in one direction, and the Axe Valley in another, and here he sat for a while, smoking and reading and now and then trying to follow the tortuous windings of the Axe as it came down the marsh to the sea. "If Ninian were here," he said to himself, "he'd start making plans to straighten it out!..." He glanced through the war bulletins, with their terrible iteration of trenches taken and trenches lost. People read the war news carelessly now, almost wearily, so accustomed had they become to the daily report of positions evacuated and positions retrieved, forgetting almost that at the taking or the losing of a trench, men lost their lives. "There isn't much in the paper this morning," he said, and then he turned to a page of lesser news, and almost as he did so, his eye caught sight of Gilbert's name. His grip on the paper was so tight that he tore it. He stared at the paragraph with startling eyes, reading and re-reading it, as if he were unable to comprehend the meaning of the thing he read.... Then, as understanding came to him, he gaped about with vacant eyes. "Oh, my God!" he cried, "Gilbert's been killed!" 9 He got up, half choking, and scrambled out of the field. A labourer greeted him, but he made no answer. He ran up the road, and as he ran, he cried to himself, "Gilbert's dead ... it isn't true ... it isn't true!..." He thrust open the gate and ran swiftly up to the door. "Mary!" he shouted. "Mary! Mary!!..." She came running to him, followed by her mother. "What is it?" she cried, and her heart was full of fear. Mrs. Graham clutched at him. "It isn't ... it isn't...." He sank down into a chair and buried his head in his hands. "Gilbert's dead," he said. "He's been killed!..." Mary knelt beside him, and drew his head on to her shoulder. She did not speak. There was nothing that could be said. She knew that Gilbert and Henry had cared for each other as men seldom care ... and no one, not even she, could bring comfort to the one who was left. So she just held him.... 10 Mrs. Graham had left them alone. Her fear had been for Ninian, and when she heard Gilbert's name, her relief was such that she had hurried from the room lest Henry, stricken by the death of his friend, should see her face. "I know now," he said when he was calmer, "what it was on the White Cliff. He wanted to tell me, Mary. He wanted to tell me ... and I wouldn't look round. Oh, my God, I wouldn't look round!" THE NINTH CHAPTER 1