He suddenly laughed and checked himself. ‘Off on my hobby-horse again! Why the deuce don’t you chuck a book at me, old chap? Too much spouting at these recruiting shows will make me an infliction to my friends. Ah—there goes Mrs. Melrose! Joy for Mother! Likewise the devout Mrs. Clutterbuck, who thinks to advertise her own virtue by maligning better folk than herself. Come on down. We’ll get the tail-end of tea and the poor dears will need cheering up.’ They found the poor dears in very fair spirits—considering. Helen was delighted at recapturing Sheila; and the girl herself made no secret of her distaste for the restless superficial activities of her own home. A telegram from Sir Nevil Sinclair explained his non-appearance and begged Mark not to fail him at the Bramleigh meeting next day. Then, tea being removed and the others dispersed, Mark found himself alone with Sheila, whom he had scarcely seen since the day of Bel’s regeneration. ‘It’s good to get you back again, Mouse,’ he said, with brotherly directness: and as she merely smiled without looking up, he allowed his eyes to linger on her face. ‘But I’m not sure I approve of the massage plan, specially if it means careering off to France with Miss Videlle.’ Sheila hesitated. ‘I thought—if you married—there might be Bel. But if Mums really needs me, I’d leave anything, anyone ... for her. She knows that.’ The girl’s voice throbbed with feeling and a faint colour showed in her cheeks. ‘I’m very doubtful, though, whether she could or would stay here long—without you.’ Mark started and frowned. ‘She must! She’ll be safe here; and there’s no end of useful work for her on the spot. All the same—’ he paused, looking deep into the heart of the wood, at pine-stems rosy with shafts of light. ‘I believe you know best. She won’t stop. She’d break her heart. War comes cruel hard on the women.’ Sheila said nothing: but the set of her lips showed a faint line of strain that he had not noticed before. ‘Come for a quarter-deck prowl with me, Mouse,’ he said. They paced the wide-flagged terrace, veined with moss, till near dinner-time; and only at the last did Mark speak the thought uppermost in his mind. They had reached the far end when he came to a standstill and faced her squarely. ‘Sheila—it goes against the grain asking favours for Bel, even of you and Mother; but you were such a brick before; and now—it’s a bit of an ordeal for her facing you all after—what happened up there. Otherwise she’d have been here sooner. Of course I’ll make her speak to Mums straight away, which may clear the air, between them. But I want you all to be ever so kind and not let her feel a shadow of awkwardness. Just pick up the threads again as if nothing had happened. Will you—for my sake?’ Sheila was leaning now against the balustrade, her hands pressed palm downwards on the stone work.