el. Nelly went in fear of she knew not what. The newspapers said
little, but through Carton and the Farrells, she heard a great deal of
military gossip. The shell supply was improving--the new Ministry of
Munitions beginning to tell--a great blow was impending.

Weeks of rain and storm died down into an autumnal gentleness. The
bracken was turning on the hills, the woods beginning to dress for the
pageant of October. The sketching lessons which the usual August deluge
had interrupted were to begin again, as soon as Farrell came home. He
had been in France for a fortnight, at Etaples, and in Paris, studying
new methods and appliances for the benefit of the hospital. But whether
he was at home or no, the benefactions of Carton never ceased. Almost
every other day a motor from the Hall drove up laden with fruit and
flowers, with books and magazines.

The fourth week of September opened. The rumours of coming events crept
more heavily and insistently than ever through a sudden spell of heat
that hung over the Lakes. Nelly Sarratt slept little, and wrote every
day to her George, letters of which long sections were often destroyed
when written, condemned for lack of cheerfulness.

She was much touched by Farrell's constant kindness, and grateful for
it; especially because it seemed to keep Bridget in a good temper. She
was grateful too for the visitors whom a hint from him would send on
fine afternoons to call on the ladies at Rydal--convalescent officers,
to whom the drive from Carton, and tea with 'the pretty Mrs. Sarratt'
were an attraction, while Nelly would hang breathless on their gossip of
the war, until suddenly, perhaps, she would turn white and silent, lying
back in her garden chair with the look which the men talking to
her--brave, kind-hearted fellows--soon learnt to understand. Marsworth
came occasionally, and Nelly grew to like him sincerely, and to be
vaguely sorry for him, she hardly knew why. Cicely Farrell apparently
forgot them entirely. And in August and the first part of September she
too, according to Captain Marsworth's information, had been away, paying
visits.

On the morning of September 26th, the Manchester papers which reached
the cottage with the post contained columns of telegrams describing the
British attack at Loos, and the French 'push' in Champagne. Among the
letters was a short word from Sarratt, dated the 24th. 'We shall
probably be in action to-morrow, dearest. I will wire as soon as I