coffin was carried down the long winding path above the
deep-water reach, where Michael and Francis at Christmas had heard the
sound of stealthy rowing, and on to the boat that awaited it to ferry it
across to the church. There was high tide, and, as they passed over the
estuary, the stillness of supreme noon bore to them the tolling of the
bell. The mourners from the house followed, just three of them, Lord
Ashbridge, Michael, and Aunt Barbara, for the rest were to assemble at
the church. But of all that, one moment stood out for Michael above all
others, when, as they entered the graveyard, someone whom he could not
see said: "I am the Resurrection and the Life," and he heard that his
father, by whom he walked, suddenly caught his breath in a sob.

All that day there persisted that sense of complete detachment from all
but her whose body they had laid to rest on the windy hill overlooking
the broad water. His father, Aunt Barbara, the cousins and relations who
thronged the church were no more than inanimate shadows compared with
her whose presence had come last night into his room, and had not left
him since. The affairs of the world, drums and the torch of war, had
passed for those hours from his knowledge, as at the centre of a cyclone
there was a windless calm. To-morrow he knew he would pass out into
the tumult again, and the minutes slipped like pearls from a string,
dropping into the dim gulf where the tempest raged. . . .

He went back to town next morning, after a short interview with his
father, who was coming up later in the day, when he told him that he
intended to go back to his regiment as soon as possible. But, knowing
that he meant to go by the slow midday train, his father proposed to
stop the express for him that went through a few minutes before. Michael
could hardly believe his ears. . . .

CHAPTER XV

It was but a day or two after the outbreak of the war that it was
believed that an expeditionary force was to be sent to France, to help
in arresting the Teutonic tide that was now breaking over Belgium; but
no public and authoritative news came till after the first draft of the
force had actually set foot on French soil. From the regiment of the
Guards which Michael had rejoined, Francis was among the first batch of
officers to go, and that evening Michael took down the news to Sylvia.
Already stories of German barbarity were rife, of women violated, of
defenceless civilians being shot down fo