ghed and gossiped with each other, though not without a
good many side glances towards the khaki figures pacing the deck, many
of them specimens of English youth at its best.

Bridget however took little notice of them. She was becoming more and
more absorbed in her own problem. She had not in truth made up her mind
how to deal with it, and she admitted reluctantly that she would have to
be guided by circumstance. Midway across, when the French coast and its
lighthouses were well in view, she took out the same letter which she
had received two days before at the Grasmere post-office, and again read
it through.

'X Camp, 102, General Hospital.

'DEAR MISS COOKSON,--I am writing to _you_, in the first instance
instead of to Mrs. Sarratt, because I have a vivid remembrance of what
seemed to me your sister's frail physical state, when I saw you last May
at Rydal. I hope she is much stronger, but I don't want to risk what, if
it ended in disappointment, might only be a terrible strain upon her to
no purpose--so I am preparing the way by writing to you.

'The fact is I want you to come over to France--at once. Can you get
away, without alarming your sister, or letting her, really, know
anything about it? It is the merest, barest chance, but I think there is
just a chance, that a man who is now in hospital here _may_ be poor
George Sarratt--only don't build upon it yet, _please_. The case was
sent on here from one of the hospitals near the Belgian frontier about a
month ago, in order that a famous nerve-specialist, who has joined us
here for a time, might give his opinion on it. It is a most
extraordinary story. I understand from the surgeon who wrote to our
Commandant, that one night, about three months ago, two men, in German
uniforms, were observed from the British front-line trench, creeping
over the No Man's Land lying between the lines at a point somewhere east
of Dixmude. One man, who threw up his hands, was dragging the other, who
seemed wounded. It was thought that they were deserters, and a couple of
men were sent out to bring them in. Just as they were being helped into
our trench, however, one of them was hit by an enemy sniper and mortally
wounded. Then it was discovered that they were not Germans at all. The
man who had been hit said a few incoherent things about his wife and
children in the Walloon patois as he lay in the trench, and trying to
point to his companion, uttered the one word "Anglais"--that, ev