p
all last night with Mother Beckett, and oh, how glad I was, Padre, that
Fate had forced me to train as a nurse! I've been glad--thankful--ever
since the war: but this is the first time my gladness has been so
personal. Brian's illness was in hospital. I could do nothing for him.
But you can hardly think what it has meant to me, to know that I've been
of real use to this dear woman, that I've been able to spare her
suffering. Before, I had no right to her love. I'd stolen it. Now,
maybe I am beginning to earn a little of the affection which she and
Father Beckett give me.

I was all "keyed up" when I began to write to you to-night, Padre; but I
was supposed to spend my three hours "off" in sleep. One hour is gone.
Even if I can't sleep, I shall pass the other two trying to rest, in my
narrow bed, which is close to Dierdre's.

CHAPTER XXVI

This is the next day. Mother Beckett is better, and I've been praised by
the _medecin major_ for my nursing. We've got our luggage from
Compiegne, and may be here for days. We shall miss the pleasure of
travelling to Amiens with the war correspondents, who must go without
us, and we women will get no glimpse of the British front!

Now I'm going to tell you about the incident which has made me almost
love Dierdre O'Farrell--a miracle, it would have seemed two weeks ago,
when my best mental pet name for her was "little cat!"

When I wrote last night, I mentioned that the room Mother Beckett has in
this little hotel had been intended for the wife of a French officer
coming out of hospital. Another room was prepared for that lady, and it
happened to be the one next door to Mother Beckett's. Through the thin
partition wall I heard voices, a man's and a woman's, talking in French.
I couldn't make out the words--in fact, I tried not to!--but the woman's
tones were soft and sweet as the coo of a dove. I pictured her beautiful
and young, and I was sure from her way of speaking that she adored her
husband. The two come into my story presently, but I think it should
begin with a walk that Brian and Dierdre (and Sirius, of course) took
together.

With me shut up in Mother Beckett's room, my blind brother and Julian
O'Farrell's sister were thrown more closely together even than before.
I'm sure Julian saw to that, eliminating himself as he couldn't do when
travelling all three in the Red Cross taxi! Perhaps Dierdre and Brian
had never been alone in each other's company so long; and