Chapter 40 - Page 2

They will bring red-hot blood and furious
unbounded courage-- And it will be the end."

In fact Coombe waited with a tense sensation of being too tightly
strung. He had hours when he felt that something might snap. But nothing
must snap yet. He was too inextricably entangled in the arduous work
even to go to Darreuch for rest. He did not go for weeks. All was well
there however--marvellously well it seemed, even when he held in mind a
letter from Robin which had ended:--

"He has not come back. But I am not afraid. I promised him I would never
be afraid again."

In dark and tired hours he steadied himself with a singular
half-realised belief that she would not--that somehow some strange thing
would be left to her, whatsoever was taken away. It was because he felt
as if he were nearing the end of his tether. He had become
hypersensitive to noises, to the sounds in the streets, to the strain
and grief in faces he saw as he walked or drove.

* * * * *

After lying awake all one night without a moment of blank peace he came
down pale and saw that his hand shook as he held his coffee cup. It was
a livid sort of morning and when he went out for the sake of exercise he
found he was looking at each of the strained faces as if it held some
answer to an unformed question. He realised that the tenseness of both
mind and body had increased. For no reason whatever he was restrung by a
sense of waiting for something--as if something were going to happen.

He went back to Coombe House and when he crossed the threshold he
confronted the elderly unliveried man who had stood at his place for
years--and the usually unperturbed face was agitated so nearly to panic
that he stopped and addressed him.

"Has anything happened?"

"My lord--a Red Cross nurse--has brought"--he was actually quite
unsteady--too unsteady to finish, for the next moment the Red Cross
nurse was at his side--looking very whitely fresh and clean and with a
nice, serious youngish face.

"I need not prepare you for good news--even if it is a sort of shock,"
she said, watching him closely. "I have brought Captain Muir back to
you."

"You have brought--?" he exclaimed.

"He has been in one of the worst German prisons. He was left for dead on
the field and taken prisoner. We must not ask him questions. I don't
know why he is alive. He escaped, God knows how. At this time he does
not know himself. I saw him on the boat. He asked me to take charge of
him," she spoke very quickly. "He is a skeleton, poor boy. Come."

She led the way to his own private room. She went on talking short
hurried sentences, but he scarcely