e door, half
closed it, felt for a nail on the inner side of it, and carefully hung
his coat thereon.

_Now_ I could usher him into the waiting family circle.

No. I was wrong.

Briggs calmly divested himself of his jacket. He then felt for another
door, a door which opened on to a stair leading to the upper storey. On
a nail in this door he hung his jacket. And then, in his shirt-sleeves,
he was ready. Shirt-sleeves were symbolical. He was home at last, and
prepared to sit down with his people.

Of the actual reunion I saw nothing, for I promptly said I must go. It
was imperative for me to hurry back, or I should miss my train.

"You'll stay an' take a sup of tea with us," said Briggs.

I couldn't, though I should have liked to do so, in some ways, and in
others should have hardly dared to be an intruder on such a meeting. I
shook hands with my patient. Looking back as I went out of the door I
saw Briggs's wife still seated, motionless, in her chair. She had not
opened her lips. It was impossible to divine what were her emotions. She
was very pale. There were no tears in her eyes as she stared at her
young blind husband. But I think there were tears waiting to be shed.

I looked back again when I reached the end of the path across the
cabbage-patch. The cottage door was still open. In the aperture stood
the younger of the two women, Briggs's sister. She waved to me and
smiled. It was evident that it had struck her that I ought to have been
thanked for my services, and she was expressing this, cordially if
belatedly. I waved my hand in return, and hastened up the street towards
the tram.

My hurry was fruitless. I missed my train in Bradford, and stayed the
night at an hotel, thus (with appropriate but improper extravagance)
concluding this particular performance in the role of travelling courier
to a distinguished invalid. As I sat over a sumptuous table d'hote--this
was long before the submarine blockade and the food restrictions--I
wondered what Briggs's wife said to Briggs; and I made up a story about
it. But what I have written above is not a story, it is the unadorned
truth, which I could not have invented and which is perhaps better than
the story. In his courier's presence Briggs addressed not one word to
his wife, and his wife addressed not one word to him; nor did his sister
or his brother-in-law. Nor did any of this trio address one word to me.

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