Chapter 32 - Page 2

station and stood
looking at the climbing moor, that he was like one of those who had left
the roar of battle behind and reached utter quiet. London was a world's
width away and here the War did not exist. In Flanders and in France it
filled the skies with thunders and drenched the soil with blood. But
here it was not.

The partly rebuilt ruin of Darreuch rose at last before his view high on
the moor as he drove up the winding road. The space and the blue sky
above and behind it made it seem the embodiment of remote stillness.
Nothing had reached nor could touch it. It did not know that green
fields and deep woods were strewn with dead and mangled youth and all it
had meant of the world's future. Its crumbled walls and remaining grey
towers stood calm in the clear air and birds' nests were hidden safely
in their thick ivy.

Robin was there and each night she believed that a dead man came to her
a seeming living being. He was not like Dowie, but his realisation of
the mystery of this thing touched his nerves as a wild unexplainable
sound heard in the darkness at midnight might have done. He wondered if
he should see some look which was not quite normal in her eyes and hear
some unearthly note in her voice. Physically the effect upon her had
been good, but might he not be aware of the presence of some mental
sign?

"I think you'll be amazed when you see her, my lord," said Dowie, who
met him. "I am myself, every day."

She led him up to the Tower room and when he entered it Robin was
sitting by a window sewing with her eyelids dropped as he had pictured
them. The truth was that Dowie had not previously announced him because
she had wanted him to come upon just this.

Robin rose from her chair and laid her bit of sewing aside. For a moment
he almost expected her to make the little curtsey Mademoiselle had
taught her to make when older people came into the schoolroom. She
looked so exactly as she had looked before life had touched her. There
was very little change in her girlish figure; the child curve of her
cheek had returned; the Jacqueminot rose glowed on it and her eyes were
liquid wonders of trust. She came to him holding out both hands.

"Thank you for coming," she said in her pretty way. "Thank you, Lord
Coombe, for coming."

"Thank you, my child, for asking me to come," he answered and he feared
that his voice was not wholly steady.

There was no mystic sign to be seen about her. The only mystery was in
her absolutely blooming health and naturalness and in the gentle and
clear happiness of her voice and eyes. She was not tired; she was not
dragged or anxious looking as he had seen even fortunate young wives and