y. They drove to Whitcombe Station with
him and saw him off. They had been anxious about Mrs. Graham and dubious
of her endurance at the moment of parting ... but she had insisted on
going to the station, and so they had not persisted in their
persuasions. And she had held herself proudly.

"Good-bye, my dear," she said, hugging Ninian tightly, and smiling at
him. "You'll write to me ... often!"

"Every day," he replied. "If I can!"

It had been difficult to fill in the few moments between their arrival
at the station and the departure of the train. They said little empty
things ... repeated them ... and then were silent....

Then the train began to move, and Mrs. Graham, snatching quickly at him,
had kissed him as he was carried off. They stood at the end of the
platform, watching the train driving quickly up the valley until it
stopped at Coly. Then they heard the whistle of the engine, and saw the
smoke curling up, and again the train moved on, and then they could see
it no more.

"We'll walk home," Mary whispered to Henry. "She'd much better go back
by herself!"

And so they left her, still smiling, though now and then, her hands
trembled.

THE EIGHTH CHAPTER

1

A month after Gilbert and Ninian had left England, Henry went to London
for a couple of days on business connected with his books. Mrs. Graham
had asked him to return to Boveyhayne instead of going to Ireland, until
he was fully well again, and he had gladly accepted her invitation. He
had written a few pages of a new book that pleased him, and he was
anxious to complete the story before he entered the Army. Writing irked
him, but he could not abstain from writing ... some demon drove him to
it, forcing him to his desk when all his desire was to be out in the
lanes with Mary or sailing about the bay with Tom Yeo and Jim
Rattenbury. There were times when he loathed this labour of writing
which came between him and the pleasure of living, so that he sometimes
saw foxgloves and bluebells and primroses and violets and wild
daffodils, not as the careless beauty of a Devonshire lane, but as
picturesque material for a description in one of his chapters. And his
beastly creatures would not lie still in his study until he returned to
attend to them, but insisted on following him wherever he went,
thrusting themselves upon his notice continually, whether the time was
opportune or not. He would walk with Mary, perhaps to Hangman's Stone,
and sudde