ment,
as so many who might have gone to swell it were fighting in the ranks
before Sebastopol, or in hospital at Balaklava, cholera-stricken
perhaps; or, nominally, waiting till resurrection-time in the cemetery
there, or by the Alma, for the grass of a new year to cover them in; but
maybe actually--and likelier too--in some strange inconceivable Hades;
poor cold ghosts in the dark, marvelling at the crass stupidity of Cain,
and even throwing doubts on "glory."

The Colonel's party, belonging to the class that is ready to send all
its sons that can bag game or ride to hounds, to be food for powder
themselves in any dispute made and provided, was sadly denuded of the
young man element, and he himself was fretting with impatience at the
medical verdict that had disqualified him for rejoining his regiment
with a half-healed lung. But the middle-aged majority, and the civilian
juniors--including a shooting parson--could talk of nothing but the War.

Some of us who are old enough will recall easily their own consciousness
of the universal war-cloud at this time, when reminded that the details
of Inkerman were only lately to hand, and that Florence Nightingale had
not long begun to work in the hospital at Scutari. But the immediate
excitement of the moment, when the two ladies joined the dinner-party
that evening at the Towers, was the frightful storm of which Gwen had
already had the first news, which had strewn the coast of the Chersonese
with over thirty English wrecks, and sent stores and war material
costing millions to the bottom of the Black Sea. She was glad, however,
to hear that it was certain that the Agamemnon had been got off the
rocks at Balaklava, as she had understood that Granny Marrable had a
grandson on the ship.

* * * * *

The time was close at hand, within an hour, when Gwen would have to find
words to tell her strange impossible story, if not to that dear old
silver hair--to those grave peaceful eyes,--at least to one whose
measure of her whole life must perforce be changed by it. What would it
mean, to Widow Thrale, to have such a subversive fact suddenly sprung
upon her?

More than once in her ride to Chorlton it needed all her courage to
crush the impulse to tell Tom Kettering to turn the mare round and drive
back to the Towers. It would have been so easy to forge some excuse to
save her face, and postpone the embarrassing hour till to-morrow. But to
what end? It