rassed; he walked irresolutely, like a man who has lost something.

"Nollie!" he said. "Thank God!" In his voice was an infinite relief. "My
child, where have you been?"

"It's all right, Daddy. Cyril has just gone to the front. I've been
seeing him off from Charing Cross."

Pierson slipped his arm round her. They entered the house without
speaking....

3

By the rail of his transport, as far--about two feet--as he could get
from anyone, Cyril Morland stood watching Calais, a dream city, brighten
out of the heat and grow solid. He could hear the guns already, the
voice of his new life-talking in the distance. It came with its strange
excitement into a being held by soft and marvellous memories, by one
long vision of Noel and the moonlit grass, under the dark Abbey wall.
This moment of passage from wonder to wonder was quite too much for a
boy unused to introspection, and he stood staring stupidly at Calais,
while the thunder of his new life came rolling in on that passionate
moonlit dream.

VII

After the emotions of those last three days Pierson woke with the
feeling a ship must have when it makes landfall. Such reliefs are
natural, and as a rule delusive; for events are as much the parents of
the future as they were the children of the past. To be at home with
both his girls, and resting--for his holiday would not be over for ten
days--was like old times. Now George was going on so well Gratian would
be herself again; now Cyril Morland was gone Noel would lose that sudden
youthful love fever. Perhaps in two or three days if George continued to
progress, one might go off with Noel somewhere for one's last week. In
the meantime the old house, wherein was gathered so much remembrance
of happiness and pain, was just as restful as anywhere else, and the
companionship of his girls would be as sweet as on any of their past
rambling holidays in Wales or Ireland. And that first morning of perfect
idleness--for no one knew he was back in London--pottering, and playing
the piano in the homely drawing-room where nothing to speak of was
changed since his wife's day, was very pleasant. He had not yet seen
the girls, for Noel did not come down to breakfast, and Gratian was with
George.

Discovery that there was still a barrier between him and them came but
slowly in the next two days. He would not acknowledge it, yet it
was there, in their voices, in their movements--rather an absence of
something old than the pre