Hester knew that
there was no resisting it.

Hester went back to her 'Welfare' work. Cicely travelled between Carton
and London, collecting her trousseau and declaring that she _would_ be
married in Lent, whatever people might say. Farrell was deeply engaged
in introducing a new antiseptic treatment of an extremely costly kind
throughout his hospital, in watching the results of it, and in giving
facilities for the study of it, to the authorities and officials of all
kinds who applied to him. A sorrowful man--but a very busy one.
Marsworth was making his mark in the Intelligence Department of the War
Office, and was being freely named as the head of an important Military
Mission to one of the Allied Headquarters. What would become of Cicely
and the wedding, if the post were given him, and--as was probable--at a
day's warning--was not quite clear. Cicely, however, took it calmly.
'They can't give us less than three hours' notice--and if it's after two
o'clock, we can always get married somehow by five. You scurry round,
pay fifty pounds, and somebody at Lambeth does it. Then--I should see
him safely off in the evening!'

Meanwhile Bridget Cookson was living in her usual Bloomsbury
boarding-house, holding herself quite aloof from the idle ways of its
inmates, who, in the midst of the world-war, were still shopping as
usual in the mornings and spending the afternoons in tea and gossip.
Bridget, however, was scarcely employing her own time to any greater
profit for a burdened country. She was learning various languages, and
attending a number of miscellaneous lectures. Her time was fairly full,
and she lived in an illusion of multifarious knowledge which flattered
her vanity. She was certainly far cleverer; and better-educated than
the other women of her boarding-house; and she was one of those persons
who throughout life prefer to live with their inferiors. 'The only
remedy against a superiority,'--says some French writer--'is to love
it.' But Bridget was so made that she could not love it; she could only
pull it down and belittle it.

But all the same, Bridget Cookson was no monster, though she was
probably without feelings and instincts that most people possess. She
missed Nelly a good deal, more than Nelly herself would have believed.
And she thought now, that she had behaved like a fool in not recognising
Sarratt at once, and so preserving her influence with her sister.
Morally, however, she saw no great harm in what