suppose, and
feed ourselves. Unless of course we went back to Westmorland. Why can't
you? They can always telegraph.'

Nelly flushed. Her hand lying on the back of Bridget's chair shook.

'And if George sent for me,' she said, in the same low, strained voice,
'it would take eight hours longer to get to him than it would from
here.'

Bridget said nothing. In her heart of hearts she felt perfectly certain
that George never would send. She rose and put down her needlework.

'I must go and post a letter downstairs. I'll ask the woman in the
office if she knows anything about lodgings.'

Nelly went back to her post by the window. Her mind was bruised between
two conflicting feelings--a dumb longing for someone to caress and
comfort her, someone who would meet her pain with a bearing less hard
and wooden than Bridget's--and at the same time, a passionate shrinking
from the bare idea of comfort and sympathy, as something not to be
endured. She had had a kind letter from Sir William Farrell that
morning. He had spoken of being soon in London. But she did not know
that she could bear to see him--unless he could help--get something
_done!_

Bridget descended to the ground floor, and had a conversation with the
young lady in the office, which threw no light at all on the question of
lodgings. The young lady in question seemed to be patting and pinning up
her back hair all the time, besides carrying on another conversation
with a second young lady in the background. Bridget was disgusted with
her and was just going upstairs again, when the very shabby and partly
deformed hall porter informed her that someone--a gentleman--was waiting
to see her in the drawing-room.

A gentleman? Bridget hastened to the small and stuffy drawing-room,
where the hall porter had just turned on the light, and there beheld a
tall bearded man pacing up and down, who turned abruptly as she entered.

'How is she? Is there any news?'

Sir William Farrell hurriedly shook her offered hand, frowning a little
at the sister who always seemed to him inadequate and ill-mannered.

'Thank you, Sir William; she is quite well. There is a little news--but
nothing of any consequence.'

She repeated the contents of the hospital letter, with the comments on
it of the lady they had seen at the office.

'We shan't hear anything more for a fortnight. They have written to
Geneva.'

'Then they think he's a prisoner?'

Bridget supposed so.

'At any rate they