House. The sky was grey, the sea was
grey, there was no hint of sunlight. As Jay came to the door she noticed
that the honeysuckle in the bowl at the hall window was still there, but
dead. The wind had strewn the doorstep with leaves and straws and twigs,
little refugees of the air.

In the hall there was an old woman, dressed in a black dress patterned
with big red flowers. She was knitting. Her stiff skirts spread out in
angular folds round her. Jay knew she was a fellow-ghost, because
their eyes met.

Jay felt swallowed up by the silence. She could not speak, even to
think, she felt, would be too noisy. The stiff skirt of the old lady
made no rustle, the knitting needles made no click. But Jay could see
that she was counting. The House seemed to be full of unmoving time.
Outside the rain began to fall, and that grey sound enclosed the silence
of the House.

After a very long time Jay spoke. "Where is my Friend?" she asked.

"Gone to the War," answered the old woman.

"There is no War in this world," said Jay.

"On the contrary," the fellow-ghost replied, "war is, even here, where
Time is not. War is like air, in every house, in every land, on every
sea. For ever."

Between her sentences she counted. Unpausing numbers moved her lips.

"On these shores," she said, "time and Life and the sea go up and down.
Eternity has no logic. There are no reasons, there is no explanation. But
there is always War. There are fighting sea men in the caves on the
beach. Haven't you seen them, the dark sea people? Haven't you heard
their high voices that were tuned to cut through the voice of the sea?
Haven't you found their very wide, long-toed footprints in the sand? Have
you walked blind through this world?"

"No," said Jay, "I remember. The women decorate their hair with seaweed,
pink and green. I have watched them catch fish with their hands. I have
watched them put their babies to play in the pools among the rocks...."

"On the cliffs," said the fellow-ghost, "men clad in armour share the
camps of the Englishmen who fought at Cressy, and at Waterloo, and at
the Marne. On these seas the most ancient pirates sing and laugh in
chorus with Nelson's drowned sailors, and with men from the North Sea,
men whose mothers still cry in the night for them. Did you think there
was any seniority in Eternity?"

"But I don't understand," said Jay. "Time seems to leave itself behind so
quickly...."

"There is nothing to understand," s