She ran down the stairs in her swift, noiseless fashion and tapped at his door, and tapped again, and then, with a sudden catching of breath, opened it. She had been right: something had snapped indeed. A cord—a silver cord had been loosed; but it was not the G string of the little old fiddle. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXXII The funeral of old Mr. Valentine, the ‘To Let’ board on Green Gates, and the cottage into which the Miss Valentines were to move at the March quarter, gave Brackenhurst a pleasant change from the Mad Dog of Europe and the soaring prices of meat and margarine. But long before the subject was exhausted it had to make way in turn for the news that Justin Cloud had been made a Captain—“Oh, three stars, I believe: it’s the Majors that have the crown—” and that Robin Gedge had married Annabel Moulde at a registry office. It was Brackenhurst’s first war wedding, and it divided the village into two camps, into those that were more thrilled than shocked and those that were more shocked than thrilled. Annabel, of course, suffered as a pioneer does; for when Rhoda Cloud, six months later, married a man she had nursed a week and known a month, it was acclaimed as a most romantic affair; but Brackenhurst, rallying round Mrs. Gedge, had few good words for Annabel—and none at all for Laura Valentine. For it came out, as such things will, that Laura Valentine had been in the secret—had actually gone up to town with Annabel and had seen her married. “Would you believe it? Such a sensible girl, and her grandfather not dead six weeks!” “And it wasn’t—” Aunt Adela wailed, “as if you’d ever been friends with Annabel!” “I know,” said Laura guiltily. She was as puzzled at her own conduct as Brackenhurst, or as Annabel Moulde herself. For Annabel, that silken skirmisher, had found herself, as she sheltered at Green Gates one afternoon, neither feinting, thrusting, nor awaiting attack; but, huddled over a comforting hearth, with the rain curtaining the windows, the flames dancing from her little bronze toes on the fender to Laura’s knitting needles and back again to her toes, was inexplicably impelled to confidences. “Robin—going out—simply miserable, both of us. Mrs. Gedge—an old beast—loathes me—always has—‘Wait till the war’s over’—always the same old story.” It came out in jerks to the accompaniment of the crackling fire and the purring of the cat on Laura’s knee. “If I were only married to him—it would make all the difference—I could stand it then.” Then, in sudden, sullen retreat: “Oh, of course, I don’t expect you to understand. You think it’s husband-hunting—like Mrs. Gedge.” Again there was a silence, with the flames lighting up Annabel’s face and losing Laura’s in the shadows of Gran’papa’s chair. “Not that I care what you think. But if Robin’s hurt—they’ll keep me out. I couldn’t even wear mourning.”