"Will I bring ye a cup of tea?" queried the landlady. "I have the kettle boilin'." "No thank you," said Betty. "It's very kind of you, but I think we'll just sit down and wait quietly, if we may, till Mrs. Gascoigne comes in. I don't expect she'll be long." The landlady departed a little reluctantly, and Eileen Cavendish turned from the window. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm a coward to go to pieces like this. You're a dear.... And it's every bit as bad for you as it is for me, I know. But I'm not a coward really. Bill would just hate me to be a coward. It's only because--because..." She met Betty's eyes, and for the first time the shadow of a smile hovered about her mouth. Betty stepped forward impulsively and kissed her. "Then you're all right--whatever happens. You won't be quite alone," she said. They sat down side by side on the horsehair-covered sofa and Eileen Cavendish half-shyly rested her hand on Betty's as it lay in her lap. "I'm a poor creature," said the elder girl. "I wish I had something--something in me that other women have. You have it, Mrs. Gascoigne has it, and Etta Clavering. It's a sort of--strength. Something inside you all that nothing can shake or make waver." Tears welled up in her eyes and trickled slowly down her cheeks. "It's Faith," she said, and her voice trembled. "It's just believing that God can't hurt you..." She fumbled blindly for her tiny handkerchief. Betty's eyes were wet too. "Ah!" she said gently. "But you believe that too--really: deep down inside. Everybody does. It's in everything--God's mercy...." Her voice was scarcely raised above a whisper. "I know--I know," said the other. "But I've never thought about it. I'm hard, in some ways. Things seemed to happen much the same whether I held my thumbs or whether I prayed. And now that I'm terrified--now that everything in life just seems to tremble on a thread--how _can_ I start crying out that I believe, I believe...!" Her voice broke at last, and she turned sideways and buried her face in her hands. "But you _do_," said Betty with gentle insistence. The door opened and Mrs. Gascoigne entered. There was moisture in her fine grey eyes. "I'm so glad you two have come to keep me company," she said. She walked to the mirror over the fireplace and turned her back on her visitors for a moment while she appeared to adjust her hat. "I've been helping poor little Mrs. Thatcher to pack. She has had a telegram, poor child, and she's off South by the afternoon train." She turned round, still manipulating hat-pins with raised hands, and in answer to the unspoken question in her guests' faces, nodded sadly. "Yes," she said. "But they've got his body. She's going to Newcastle." "Have you had any news yourself?" asked Betty. "We have heard nothing."