Yes, it was certainly Bridget! As Nelly half rose, she heard the harsh, deep voice upon the stairs. A tall figure, heavily cloaked, entered. 'My dear Bridget--I'd quite given you up!' 'No need,' said Bridget coolly, as she allowed Nelly to kiss her cheek. 'The afternoon train from Euston was a little late. You can't help that with all these soldiers about.' 'Come and sit down by the fire. Have you done all you wanted to do?' 'Yes.' Bridget sat down, after taking off her wet water-proof, and held a draggled hat to the blaze. Nelly looking at her was struck by the fact that Bridget's hair had grown very grey, and the lines in her face very deep. What an extraordinary person Bridget was! What had she been doing all this time? But nothing could be got out of the traveller. She sat by the fire for a while, and let Nelly get her a tray of food. But she said very little, except to complain of the weather, and, once, to ask if the Farrells were at the cottage. 'Sir William is there, with Captain Marsworth,' said Nelly. 'Cicely comes here to-morrow.' 'Does she expect me to give her my room?' said Bridget sharply. 'Not at all. She likes the little spare-room.' 'Or pretends to! Has Sir William been here to-day?' 'Yes, he came round.' A few more questions and answers led to silence broken only by the crackling of the fire. The firelight played on Nelly's cheek and throat, and on her white languid hands. Presently it caught her wedding-ring, and Bridget's eye was drawn to the sparkle of the gold. She sat looking absently at her sister. She was thinking of a tiny room in a hut hospital--of the bed--and of those eyes that had opened on her. And there sat Nelly--knowing nothing! It was all a horrible anxiety. But it couldn't last long. CHAPTER XIV 'So you are not at church?' The voice was Marsworth's as he stepped inside the flagged passage of the farm, Nelly having just opened the door to him. 'It's so far!--in winter,' said Nelly a little guiltily. 'I go to Grasmere in summer.' 'Oh! don't apologise--to a heathen like me! I'm only too thankful to find you alone. Is your sister here?' 'Yes. But we've made a room for her in one of the outhouses. She works there.' 'What at? Is she still learning Spanish?' asked Marsworth, smiling, as he followed Nelly into the little white drawing-room. 'I don't know,' said Nelly, after a moment, in a tone of depression. 'Bridget doesn't tell me.' The corners of Marsworth's strong mouth shewed amusement. He was not well acquainted with Bridget Cookson, but as far as his observation went, she seemed to him a curious specimen of the half-educated pretentious woman so plentiful in our modern life. In place of 'psychology' and 'old Spanish,' the subjects in which Miss Cookson was said to be engaged, he would have liked to prescribe for her--and all her kin--courses of an elementary kind in English history and vulgar fractions.