Poor Pat! She was only a very human, very loving woman, sending her man back to the lands of no-tomorrow. And the warmth of those harmless drinks helped her through, helped her to hide the misery behind her eyes. . . . Let the self-righteous, the uncomprising ones who have never known unhappiness, cast the first stone! § 6 He would not let her see him off from the station; and she lay in bed, watching him as he laced his high-boots, straightened his spur-chains, pinned khaki collar. “Anyway, old thing,” he said, “we’ve had a great time together. And in four or five months, well make another week of it. . . .” He went down to his early breakfast; came back again; kissed her good-bye. “Take care of yourself, Peter,” she smiled at him. And again he answered “Trust me, old thing. . . .” But as she listened to the taxi purring down Harley Street, to the slam of the closing front-door, it seemed to Patricia as though there were no Power, either heavenly or earthly, in whom a woman of those days might put her trust. PART NINETEEN THE CITY OF FEAR § 1 Had Peter Jameson been an Irishman, a Gaul, or an Italian, his mind—as he taxied to Victoria Station—would have pictured to himself the physical charms of the wife he was leaving: her dark eyes framed in the golden aureole of hair, her smooth loving hands, the tones of her low voice. . . . But Peter, in his attitude towards women, was very much the Anglo-Saxon; and his thoughts of Pat, if he could have voiced them, would not have exceeded: “Dear old Pat, she’s a jolly good sort.” Still, it needed effort not to think of her overmuch during the long journey back to his Brigade! Three mornings after they had said good-bye, he lit a cigar; pulled tight the belt of his mackintosh; drew on his gauntlets; and set out on his first journey from Poperinghe to “Wipers.” Little Willie, skittish after long inactivity, lashed out as his master mounted; danced erratically over the cobbles: Queen Bess and Jelks jogged soberly in rear. It had been snowing. Under-foot the streets were still starred and sodden; and when they came to the great Square, they found men at work, shovelling dirty brown heaps to the side of the road. Gloomy, the place looked: gray-housed under its gray skies, inhospitable, a vision of discomfort. . . . Peter rode on. Scant houses gave way to flat open country—white on either side between the shell-pocked trees. It was very silent. An occasional car, a returning G.S. waggon, the clop of their own horses’ hoofs, alone broke the silence. They came to the red ruin of Vlamertinghe; passed the Church, halved by a 17-inch shell as a man halves cheese with a knife, and the four roads and the railway. Now, the road mounted, glistening bluely, veneered with mud. Peter heard, in front of him, the whistle and burst of a heavy shell; slowed to a walk.