It was raining when they woke; very good to potter about in dressing-gowns and slippers, to dawdle through their baths, and take late breakfast leisurely in the roomy library. (For Heron Baynet’s patients already waited round the book-strewn table in the long dining-room facing Harley Street.) Among her letters, Patricia found one from Alice Stark—the first since her confinement. She wrote from Devonshire: the boy flourished, had red hair like his father; Douglas had enjoyed his leave; she had heard from him that day; the Brigade had been ordered into action again; he hoped Peter was enjoying himself.

Said Peter: “You would have laughed to see the old man when the wire arrived. He sent out for three bottles of champagne. Morency rode ten miles for them; and we had to drink the youngster’s health. I wish we had a boy, Pat.”

She knew the chance remark almost meaningless—long ago, they had abandoned the hope of a son: nevertheless, it depressed her. All that day—when the children came in to be played with, at lunch with her father, through the matinÉe which followed—she thought of it. For now, he seemed almost gone again. And it had been so good to have him home. If only she could feel that he would come back safe. If only she had given him a son.

“The Optimist! And the Pessimist!” sang the two comedians on the stage in front of her. Patricia looked round the auditorium. Everywhere, she saw excited men, smiling women. Once she had envied such joyous couples. Now she only wondered, if, like herself, all the women were hiding, stifling, drugging-away somewhere, the sorrows at their heart. “But we must laugh,” she said to herself. “They mustn’t think of us as unhappy.”

And again, as on that last day at Deepcut, Patricia played out her comedy to the end. But for the first time in her life—she admitted as much to her father after Peter had gone—she let alcohol share her troubles.

Cowardly? Perhaps it was cowardly: but she couldn’t face the prospect of spoiling his last night by tears. And the alcohol helped her to put a brave face on things. The cocktails which he offered after tea, she took; and the whisky-and-soda when they got home; and the champagne for dinner, the night-cap of crÊme-de-menthe.

Poor Pat! She was only a very human, very loving woman, sending her man back to the lands of no-tomorrow. And the warmth of those harmless drinks helped her through, helped her to hide the misery behind her eyes.... Let the self-righteous, the uncomprising ones who have never known unhappiness, cast the first stone!