Up at the hotel the manager considered the advisability of hiring a string quartette for August and September; and rumour has it that old John so far forgot himself as to purchase two new dickies. "We’ll be getting the old lot back," he said to Martha one day. "Men as is men, and can bathe and play tennis and golf—not them diseases in fancy dress, as we’ve had the last year or two." It was towards the end of March that four or five of the old habitués arrived. They selected the chairs they had used of old: they all but labelled them with their names. They were the forerunners of the elder generation who remained there throughout the summer and approved or disapproved as the case might be of the children who came later. And by children, anything up to thirty is implied. It was Mrs. Garrett, the wife of the retired judge, that the manager first told of Ruth Seaton’s impending arrival. "Miss Bannister that was," he murmured to her one evening. "Married poor young Mr. Seaton who came here for two or three years." "Why poor?" boomed his august listener. "He was killed in the war," he returned. "She is a widow." "So one would be led to assume." Mrs. Garrett regarded him judicially. "Unless she has married again." The manager shrugged deprecating shoulders and passed on. The idea as mentioned by Mrs. Garrett seemed almost indecent. "We must be very good to her," ordered that lady after dinner in the lounge. "She is, after all, one of us." Ruth Bannister had married Jimmy Seaton the summer before the war. There had been the time when he was training, and then those wonderful snatched interludes of leave, when nothing mattered save the present. And then had come the news. For a week she heard nothing—no letter, no field service postcard. On the eighth day there came a telegram from the War Office, and the suspense was over. It seemed impossible. Other men might be killed: other names might appear in the casualty lists—but not Jimmy. Oh! no, not Jimmy—her Jimmy. There never had been such a marriage as theirs: not a quarrel, not a cross word the whole time. And now Jimmy was gone. Somewhere out in that filthy field of mud he was lying, and the eyes that had smiled at her were staring and sightless. Dear God! but it was too cruel.... Never again could she look at another man. Her body was still alive—but her soul, her spirit were dead. They were buried with Jimmy. "You’ll find me just the same, old man," she used to say out loud sometimes—"just the same. There’ll never be anyone else, Jimmy—never, never." Once a well-meaning but stupid friend had suggested the possibility of marrying again, and Ruth had smiled—a sad little smile. Also perhaps it was just a little tolerant: the smile of a parent whose child had asked some particularly foolish question. "My dear," said Ruth, "I don’t think you quite understand. There’ll never be anybody in my life but Jimmy. How could there be?"