"Joan! Are you here? You woke me; you were kissing my hand!" "Yes, I was kissing the scars." Elizabeth twitched her hand away. "Don't be a fool!" she said roughly. Joan looked at her, and something, perhaps the pity in her eyes made Elizabeth recover herself. "Tell me what's the matter," she asked quietly. "Has anything new happened?" Joan sat down beside her on the bed. "Come here," she said. Elizabeth moved nearer, and Joan's arm went round her with a quiet, strong movement. She kissed her on the forehead where the grey hairs showed, and then on the eyelids, one after the other. Elizabeth lay very still. Joan said: "They're sending Milly home; I'm afraid she's in consumption." Elizabeth freed herself with a quick twist of her body. "What?" "Read this letter." Elizabeth blinked at the gas-jet. "It's my eyes," she complained almost fretfully. "Light the candle, will you, Joan? Then we can put the gas out." Joan did as she wished, and returning to the bed leant over the foot-rail, watching Elizabeth as she read. Elizabeth had gone white to the lips; she laid down the letter and they stared at each other in silence. At last Elizabeth spoke. "She's coming home soon," she said in a flat voice. "Yes; I must go and fetch her the day after to-morrow." "She'll need--nursing--if she lives." "Yes--if she lives----" "It's February already, Joan." "Yes, next month is March. We called it our March, didn't we, Elizabeth?" "There are places--sanatoriums, but they cost money." "We haven't got the money, Elizabeth. And in any case, Mother's decided that Milly can't be seriously ill." "I have some money, as you know, Joan, but I was saving it for you; still----" Her voice shook. Joan sat down on the bed again and took Elizabeth's hand. "It's no good," she said gently. And then Elizabeth cried. She did it with disconcerting suddenness and complete lack of restraint. It was terrible to Joan to see her thrown right off her guard like this; to feel her shoulders shake with sobs while the tears dripped through her fingers on to the bedspread. She said: "Don't, oh, don't!" But Elizabeth took no notice, she was launched on a veritable torrent of self-indulgence which she had no will to stem. The pent-up unhappiness of years gushed out at this moment. All the ambitions, the longings, the tenderness sternly repressed, the maternal instinct, the lover instinct, all the frustrations, they were all there, finding despairing expression as she sobbed. She rocked herself from side to side and backwards and forwards. She lost her breath with little gasps, but found it again immediately, and went on crying. She murmured in a kind of ecstatic anguish: "Oh! oh!--Oh! oh!" And then, "Joan, Joan, Joan!" But not for an instant did her tears cease.