sation of it all--when she would rest on a blissful
silence.

"Thank God, it's five o'clock!" she said, flinging down her duster.

"Yes. The men will be leaving work now," said Mrs. Bradford.

Miss Ethel continued her work again, moving quietly about the room.
Wave after wave of wet salt air was rolling in from the sea, pressing
upon that which travelled slowly inland, so that the roke grew very
dense, and the little house seemed to be cut off from all the world.

Miss Ethel sat down and leaned her head back with her eyes shut: Mrs.
Bradford continued to read the paper, then rustled a page and looked at
her sister over it. As she did so, Miss Ethel sat up with a jerk and
stared across the room.

"Bless me!" said Mrs. Bradford, "what are you staring at me like that
for, Ethel? Do I look ill?" And she began to wonder if she felt ill,
for she always feared a stroke.

"Listen!" said Miss Ethel in an odd tone. "Don't you hear them? They
are working overtime."

Mrs. Bradford took her paper up irritably. "Goodness! Is that all."
She also listened, then added: "What nonsense you talk, Ethel! There
is not a sound. They have stopped work for the night."

Miss Ethel walked to the window where the grey air clung to the glass
and stood there a moment, listening intently. It was true. She could
hear nothing.

But as soon as she sat down by the fire and was not thinking, it began
again--knock, knock, knock. . . .

"They are there still," she said. "They must be."

"I tell you they are not," said Mrs. Bradford. "You have simply got
the noise on your nerves. If you don't take care, you will be really
ill. You think about the noise morning, noon and night, until you
fancy you hear it."

"I'm not a fool," said Miss Ethel. "Surely I know whether I hear a
noise or not."

"I don't know about that," said Mrs. Bradford. "I saw a case in the
paper of a man who fancied he heard a drum beating when there was
nothing at all, really."

"But I'm not 'a case,'" said Miss Ethel, tartly, pressing her hand to
her forehead. "And I'm going to see if the men really _have_ left or
not."

Mrs. Bradford glanced out of the window. "Well, you must want
something to do," she said. "You might just hand me that sheet you
were reading, as you go out."

The door banged. Miss Ethel's dim form was visible for a moment as she
passed the window then the mist hid her altogether.

Caroline was also engulfed in it as soon as s