a maid's face at the window decided him. Mr. Pierson was
out, and the young ladies were away. He asked for Mrs. Laird's address,
and turned away, almost into the arms of Pierson himself. The greeting
was stiff and strange. 'Does he know that Leila's gone?' he thought.
'If so, he must think me the most awful skunk. And am I? Am I?' When he
reached home, he sat down to write to Leila. But having stared at the
paper for an hour and written these three lines--

"MY DEAR LEILA,

"I cannot express to you the feelings with which I received your letter--"

he tore it up. Nothing would be adequate, nothing would be decent. Let
the dead past bury its dead--the dead past which in his heart had never
been alive! Why pretend? He had done his best to keep his end up. Why
pretend?

PART IV

I

In the boarding-house, whence the Lairds had not yet removed, the old
lady who knitted, sat by the fireplace, and light from the setting
sun threw her shadow on the wall, moving spidery and grey, over the
yellowish distemper, in time to the tune of her needles. She was a very
old lady--the oldest lady in the world, Noel thought--and she knitted
without stopping, without breathing, so that the girl felt inclined to
scream. In the evening when George and Gratian were not in, Noel would
often sit watching the needles, brooding over her as yet undecided
future. And now and again the old lady would look up above her
spectacles; move the corners of her lips ever so slightly, and drop her
gaze again. She had pitted herself against Fate; so long as she knitted,
the war could not stop--such was the conclusion Noel had come to. This
old lady knitted the epic of acquiescence to the tune of her needles; it
was she who kept the war going such a thin old lady! 'If I were to hold
her elbows from behind,' the girl used to think, 'I believe she'd die.
I expect I ought to; then the war would stop. And if the war stopped,
there'd be love and life again.' Then the little silvery tune would
click itself once more into her brain, and stop her thinking. In her lap
this evening lay a letter from her father.

"MY DEAREST NOLLIE,

"I am glad to say I have my chaplaincy, and am to start for Egypt very
soon. I should have wished to go to France, but must take what I can
get, in view of my age, for they really don't want us who are getting
on, I fear. It is a great comfort to me to think that Gratian is with
you, and no doubt you will all soon b