'Let me go, dear Hester--let me go! It's drudgery I want--_drudgery_' she repeated with intensity. 'Something that I don't want to do--something that's against the grain--all day long.' Then she laughed and roused herself. 'Not much likeness between me and St. Ignatius, is there?' Hester considered her gravely. 'When people like you are wrestling all day and every day with something too hard for them, their strength gives way. They think they can do it, but they can't.' 'My strength won't give way,' said Nelly, with quiet conviction. Then, after pausing a moment, she said with a strange ardour--'I once heard a story--a true story--of a man, who burnt his own hand off, because it had struck his friend. He held it in a flame till there was only the burnt stump, and after that he forgave himself and could bear to live again.' 'But whom have you struck, you poor child!' cried Hester. '_George_!' said Nelly, looking at her with bitterly shining eyes. Hester's arms enfolded her, and they talked far into the night. Before they separated, Hester had agreed that the date of Nelly's departure should be not postponed, but quickened. And during the few remaining days they were together, Hester could only notice with growing amazement the change in all the small ways and habits that had once characterised Nelly Sarratt--especially since her Torquay illness; the small invalidisms and self-indulgences, the dependence on a servant or on Bridget. Now the ascetic, penitential passion had come upon her; as it comes in different forms, upon many a man or woman in the _sélva oscúra_ of their life; and Hester knew that there was no resisting it. Hester went back to her 'Welfare' work. Cicely travelled between Carton and London, collecting her trousseau and declaring that she _would_ be married in Lent, whatever people might say. Farrell was deeply engaged in introducing a new antiseptic treatment of an extremely costly kind throughout his hospital, in watching the results of it, and in giving facilities for the study of it, to the authorities and officials of all kinds who applied to him. A sorrowful man--but a very busy one. Marsworth was making his mark in the Intelligence Department of the War Office, and was being freely named as the head of an important Military Mission to one of the Allied Headquarters. What would become of Cicely and the wedding, if the post were given him, and--as was probable--at a day's warning--was not quite clear. Cicely, however, took it calmly. 'They can't give us less than three hours' notice--and if it's after two o'clock, we can always get married somehow by five. You scurry round, pay fifty pounds, and somebody at Lambeth does it. Then--I should see him safely off in the evening!'