Yet life ran on as usual in Brackenhurst, though Belgium smoked to heaven and Justin were home on leave: and Laura had her duties. Two days’ grace, or three, might be allowed her for her imaginary headache—but on the fourth Brackenhurst clamoured for its indispensable Miss Valentine, and she must set out through by-ways to her Belgians and her babies, to lunch at the other end of the village, with an afternoon’s sewing to follow, and must keep her eyes bright and her tongue wagging to amuse her world the while. The sun was near the edge of the earth before the Depôt gates closed on her and she was her own mistress again. She hesitated. She was very tired, and Aunt Adela would be fretful if she were late for tea.... She felt that a scolding from Aunt Adela, the rasp of her plaintive voice, must at all costs be avoided.... She felt that she might turn Tartar if Aunt Adela scratched her just then—which wouldn’t be fair to poor old Aunt Adela.... Besides, she had no business to keep Aunt Adela waiting.... She must take the short cut.... She had hesitated because, though it saved her a mile, it was a cut that ran across the Priory woods, driving a broad grass-way through the heart of them, and rounding at one point the Priory garden itself. And yet—it was ridiculous to be late for tea, to involve oneself with an irritable aunt, just because her nearest way home skirted Justin’s property.... Would Justin be wandering in damp woods at this time o’ day—at his tea-time o’ day?... She knew Justin.... Besides, what should he do in the woods? He didn’t collect birds’ eggs any more.... She turned into the shining chestnut thickets, for she knew the fox-ways of the undergrowth, and emerged again, breathless, briar-whipped, into the green, central glade, where the grass was twenty feet wide and the white violets grew. This was her undoing. Laura could never resist flowers. If Laura were being ferried over to hell she would still have plunged to the elbow in the Styx, I think, after its blotched lilies—and these were violets, English and very sweet. And they were the first of the year. Do you think there is any one too old and too sad to pick white violets when they get the chance? Laura was sad enough, but she was only twenty. Forgetting her hurry, she stooped down and began picking violets. There were so many of them that the ground was soon covered with tiny short-stalked bunches, tied up with Aunt Adela’s khaki knitting wool. The soft spring air was like new milk after the close, people room she had left. The scent of the violets pleased her. Each flower as she picked it sent its ghost, like a little white thought, into her mind, to soothe and heal and sweeten it. She was so blessedly absorbed, and the grass was so thick and mossy, that she heard nothing, neither footsteps nor creak of boots, till a voice, a familiar voice, spoke above her. “Why, Laura!” said the voice.