his
moonlight. It was Saturday. Very likely both Cicely and Sir William were
at the cottage. She seemed to see Nelly, with the white shawl over her
dark head, saying good-night to them at the farm-gate. That meant that
it was all going forward. Some day,--and soon,--Nelly would discover
that Farrell was necessary to her--that she couldn't do without
him--just as she had never been able in practical ways to do without her
sister. No, there was nothing in the way of Nelly's great future, and
the free development of her--Bridget's--own life, but this sudden and
most unwelcome stroke of fate. If she had to send for Nelly--supposing
it really were Sarratt--and then if he died--Nelly might never get over
it.

It might simply kill her--why not? All the world knew that she was a
weakling. And if it didn't kill her, it would make it infinitely less
likely that she would marry Farrell--in any reasonable time. Nelly was
not like other people. She was all feelings. Actually to see George
die--and in the state that these doctors described--would rack and
torture her. She would never be the same again. The first shock was bad
enough; this might be far worse. Bridget's selfishness, in truth,
counted on the same fact as Farrell's tenderness. 'After all, what
people don't see, they can't feel'--to quite the same degree. But if
Nelly, being Nelly, had seen the piteous thing, she would turn against
Farrell, and think it loyalty to George to send her rich suitor about
his business. Bridget felt that she could exactly foretell the course of
things. A squalid and melancholy veil dropped over the future. Poverty,
struggle, ill-health for Nelly--poverty, and the starving of all natural
desires and ambitions for herself--that was all there was to look
forward to, if the Farrells were alienated, and the marriage thwarted.

A fierce revolt shook the woman by the window. She sat on there till the
moon dropped into the sea, and everything was still in the little
echoing hotel. And then though she went to bed she could not sleep.

* * * * *

After her coffee and roll in the little _salle a manger_, which with its
bare boards and little rags of curtains was only meant for summer
guests, and was now, on this first of November, nippingly cold, Bridget
wandered a little on the shore watching the white dust of the foam as a
chill west wind skimmed it from the incoming waves, then packed her bag,
and waited restlessly fo