ad stood up too and was drawing on her
gloves. "He may go at any moment, as soon as they need him. You think I
am awfully hard," she went on; "perhaps I am. Dick means a lot to me; if
I find that this is breaking his heart I will tell him, will you believe
that? But if he can find happiness elsewhere I shall be glad, that is
all."

Fanny huddled herself up in the armchair and did a good cry after she
had gone. Joan's thread of happiness seemed more tangled than ever; her
efforts to undo the knots had not been very successful. There was only
her belief in the strength of Dick's love to fall back on, and love--as
Fanny knew from her own experience--is sometimes only a weathercock in
disguise, blown this way and that by the winds of fate.

The night post brought a letter from Joan. It was written on black-edged
notepaper:

"DEAR FANNY,

"Aunt Janet is dead. She died the night after I got here. The
nurse says it was the joy of seeing me again that killed her.
She was glad to have me back, I read that in her eyes, and it
is the one fact that helps me to face things. Death stands
between us now, yet we are closer to each other than we have
been these last two years. And she loved me all the time,
Fanny; sometimes it seems as if love could be very
unforgiving. I must stay on down here for the time being;
Uncle John needs someone, and he is content that it should be
me. The War overhangs and overshadows everything, and it is
going to be a hard winter for us all. I suppose he hasn't been
back" (Fanny knew who was meant by "he") "to see me. It's
stupid of me to ask, but hope is so horribly hard to kill.

"Yours ever,

"JOAN."

Fanny wrote in answer that evening, but she made no mention of Mabel's
visit. "Dr. Grant has joined, I hear," she put rather vaguely. "But of
course one knew he would. All the decent men are going. London is just
too wonderful, honey, I can't keep out of the streets. All day there are
soldiers going past; I love them all, with a sort of love that makes you
feel you want to be good, and gives you a lump in your throat. They say
we have already sent thousands of men to Belgium, though there has not
been a word about it in the papers, but I met a poor woman in the crowd
to-day who had just said good-bye to her son. I wish I had got a son,
only, of