It was not until his name appeared in the Roll of Honour as "missing" that Barbara appreciated how eagerly discussed she and Jack had been. The discreet sympathy of her relations would have been bewildering if Lady Knightrider had not explained it.

"I hurried round the moment I had the news! My darling child, you've got to be very brave!" she faltered. "I know what you and Jack were to each other."

"Aunt Kathleen, I don't think I can talk about this," Barbara interrupted quietly.

"No...? It sometimes helps. I was always very fond of dear Jack, and you know how I love you! But I only came to tell you that you mustn't give up hope——"

"Thank you, dear!"

Barbara realized suddenly that she was being forced into an assumed intimacy which would have been comic at any other time. It was impossible, however, to begin explaining to Lady Knightrider.

"Did you see him when he was home on leave?" her aunt continued with the persistency of one who, having come to harrow and to be harrowed, did not propose to be baulked.

"I've not seen him since that time a year ago."

"Ah, no! You've both been so busy. His poor parents——"

"They're the people to be sorry for," said Barbara.

"Darling, you're quite wonderful!"

Barbara had used the words to deflect the conversation from herself, but her aunt gave her credit for such stoicism that she took a step towards the door for fear that in another moment she would break into a scream. Lady Knightrider followed her, and in the hall they met George Oakleigh, embarrassed and trying to carry off his embarrassment with an air of earnest bustle.

"I'm absolutely at a loose end to-night, Barbara," he began. "I believe somebody must have made peace or something; the Admiralty's not been as slack as this since the first day of the war. I wondered whether you'd care to come and have dinner somewhere."

"It's sweet of you, George, but I've promised to dine with Aunt Eleanor and Amy. Is to-morrow any good to you?"

"I believe I'm dining out, but I can scratch that. Yes, to-morrow. I'll come and pick you up about eight. Now I must simply fly!"

"Back to work? I thought things were so slack?"

"M'yes, I said that, didn't I?"

"And it served its purpose. They'll be slack whenever I say that I want you; and you'll sit up half the night afterwards. Thank you, George. But I wish you didn't make me feel so horribly unworthy of your sweetness."

He turned away and fidgetted with the badge of his cap.

"'Sweetness' be blowed! This war's such a ghastly business.... Sometimes one wants a little companionship. I'm glad you can come to-morrow. Keep a brave heart, Barbara."

It seemed sacrilegious to accept so much sympathy, and, as he hurried into Berkeley Street, she was tempted to run after him and explain. Once she read of some one who murdered a man and went to the widowed mother to confess his crime; his delicacy in telling her of the death caused him to be regarded as her son's dearest friend, and, when the murder went undiscovered, the murderer accepted the situation and attended the funeral as chief mourner, with the widowed mother leaning on his arm.... If Lady Knightrider and George fancied that she had loved Jack, she must accept the situation; it might be sacrilegious, but, on the other hand, if any one said "Did you love Jack Waring?" she could not honestly give a categorical "No."...

And there would be more sympathy—and sacrilege—at dinner. Barbara knew that she had only been invited that Lady Loring and Amy might try to comfort her. Neither referred to Jack by name; but they were more gently affectionate than usual, and she was left to discuss him or not, as she liked. Lady Loring told of the steps which she had taken and the offices which she had approached to gain tidings of her son. George had set enquiries on foot through the Spanish and American Embassies, the Vatican and The Hague; but they were barely instituted, when the War Office received indisputable evidence of death.

"Connie Maitland was very anxious for me to go to a clairvoyant," Amy put in. "She says Mrs. Savage in Knightsbridge is wonderful. When her boy was wounded—before she heard about it—she had a sort of presentiment that something was wrong, so she went there, and Mrs. Savage told her that he was wounded but that it wasn't serious. I believe she actually said that he was wounded in the head, but Connie may have added that."

"Did you try her?" asked Barbara.

"No." Amy hesitated and looked uncomfortable. "I'm always afraid.... I believe, if we were meant to have that kind of knowledge it would come to us in some other way.... And, if anything terrible's going to happen to me, I'd sooner not hear about it beforehand."

Barbara whispered the name to herself and determined, if need be, to find out more about the woman. Since her tragic sÉance in Webster's flat, she had decided to play with fire no more; but she could never forget the sight of Jack Summertown, staring a little glassily but speaking with his natural voice and talking so freely of an imminent war and of his own approaching death that none dared tell him what he had said. It might be coincidence that his name had appeared in the first casualty list; but more than coincidence was needed to explain why he should have talked at all of a future war.

"But uncertainty's the most terrible thing of all," Barbara murmured.

"It has to be borne," said Lady Loring gently, after a pause. "And sometimes for a long time."

Barbara nodded. It was useless to tell them that she had already waited a year to find out whether Jack wanted to marry her.

The next night she dined with George Oakleigh, who told her that he had taken tickets for Eric Lane's play.

"Oh, George, I don't know that I want to go to a theatre," she said doubtfully. "I've not been for so long——"

"Isn't that all the more reason? You're the best unpaid dramatic critic in London; and I want to know what you think of it. Eric's a great friend of mine. I particularly want you to meet him.... Don't come, if you'd rather not. But I've got a box, and, if the play bores you more than my conversation, we can talk in peace."

They compromised by arriving late, but Barbara was not in the mood to enjoy herself. It was a well-constructed play with dialogue of distinction and a good sense of the theatre; the characterization, she complained, was insufferably romantic.

"I congratulate your friend on a great commercial success," she said, "but I don't want to meet him. Listen to the applause! Every single character is so unmistakably labelled that the audience greets them like old friends. The theatre's so conventional that, if you tried to shew men and women who were higher and lower than stage standards, the critics would say that your characters were freaks. On the stage a woman may be jealous or high-minded or a mixture or a saint or a thorough-going, melodramatic villainess, but she's always a child, a kitten. Men idealize us so hopelessly! We're dear little fluffy, rather silly things, with silly little mental kinks of vanity or motherliness; no man understands how mean a woman can be, the lies she'll tell and the crimes she'll commit from motives which she'd be afraid to confess. Your friend Mr. Lane has never met a woman."

"You're hard on your sex," George commented.

Barbara shook her head sadly.

"I've seen it—without its rouge and powder. Look here, Sonia's a friend of yours and of mine; we both know how she behaved to Jim, but you'd never dare put her into a play, because the audience won't accept anything that offends against its standard of human dignity, it won't accept realism which makes people unconventionally mean, it won't believe that any one who's pretty enough to attract can have a really deceitful, petty spirit. Sonia was getting rather a bad name before the war, but she marries a man who's lost his sight, and every one says that the other part was just froth and that this is the true, noble Sonia—just as nine women out of ten become true and noble at the final curtain. Sonia married that man for effect!"

"I don't think you can have seen them together," George suggested.

"If it pays, a woman can always make herself think she's in love with a man—for a time. I daresay she thought she was in love with Jim; it would have been a sensational marriage, and she'd just made a fool of herself with that other man, the barrister. This, in another way, is a sensational marriage, and she feels she's justified herself. It's no good shaking your head, George; you don't know what romances a girl makes up for herself. I should do it. As long as women are exposed for sale in a shop-window, they'll do anything to keep up their price. They think it's self-respect; and you men admire them for their pride."

George drew her hand through his arm and walked to Berkeley Square without speaking. From her unwonted bitterness he guessed that she was trying to harden herself in advance for the news of Jack's death; every one had to choose his own form of consolation.

"When will you dine with me again?" she asked, as they reached her house.

"I'm going to the Abbey for the week-end. Any time after that."

"Then what about Monday? I'll pick you up at the same time."

When the day came round, Lady Crawleigh telephoned to say that the dinner must be postponed, as Barbara was ill in bed. She had fainted in the train and would have to take a complete rest; no plans had yet been made, no details or explanation were vouchsafed. Indeed, Barbara would only say that she had found herself stretched on the seat of the railway carriage, while a strange man forced brandy between her lips.

Any fuller report would have increased the already excessive alarm. The bare facts were that Barbara had entered the train at Crawleigh and remembered nothing until she recovered consciousness a few miles from Farnborough. A young man, who explained that he had got in at Winchester, had picked her up from the floor and taken charge of her until her maid appeared at Waterloo.

When she had been put to bed, Barbara began to recall and reconstruct forgotten incidents. She had felt giddy and had tried to open the window.... At Waterloo the young man had insisted on carrying her, and she had protested that she was too heavy. "I'll take great care of you."... "You are very good to me."... Scraps of their conversation floated through her head, and she remembered that he had a caressing voice which soothed her; they had talked, but she was three parts asleep. Half-way along the platform, he put her to rest on a seat. "I'm supposed to have an overstrained heart," he told her, "so I don't like to take liberties with it." Barbara tried to see his face; but he was bending over her, and the light was behind him. And then he had disappeared before she could thank him. "I do hope you'll be all right. I've given your maid my flask in case you want any more brandy. Good-bye." Barbara remembered making a great effort to rouse herself and look at him; but he had dived into the crowd without even telling her his name. The flask was engraved with a monogram which seemed to be E. L.; that and his voice were her only clues.

In her oversensitive condition, the voice was haunting. When she fell asleep, Barbara heard it again; and in the morning she gave orders that, if he called for the flask, he was to be asked his name and address. Then she tried to remember whether she had told him anything which would enable him to identify her; there was a label on her dressing-case, but he might not have seen it; as soon as her maid and car appeared, he had no need to ask where she lived. Barbara felt a pang of disappointment at the thought that she might not meet him again. Two days passed, and no one enquired for the flask; she decided to wait until she was allowed out of bed and then to advertise in the Times. "E. L. Will the gentleman who rendered assistance to a lady who was taken ill on the 3.40 p. m. between Winchester and Waterloo communicate...."

She was drafting the advertisement when her mother came into the room.

"My darling, you oughtn't to be writing," protested Lady Crawleigh. "Let me do it for you, if it's important."

"Oh, it doesn't matter," Barbara answered.

She tore up the paper and lay back in bed. There was nothing to conceal, but she did not want to talk about her nameless and mysterious rescuer. Every one would laugh at her, if she said that she had fallen in love with a voice; and, if she chose to weave a romance for herself, it passed the time and was no one else's business. When the advertisement appeared, "E. L." would write to a numbered box at the Times office; she would ask him to call so that she could thank him in person. And a charming friendship might result. No one could have carried her more tenderly or behaved more delightfully.... And, as long as she amused herself with speculating about him, she could avoid thinking of other things.

"George has brought you some flowers. He wants to know if you feel up to seeing him," said Lady Crawleigh.

"Oh, George! Yes!"

He was almost the only one of her friends whom she was willing to meet in her present mood, though his arrival interrupted the romance which she was constructing. He was also the only one of her friends who knew or had troubled to find out that she was ill. Apparently he was fond of her.... And she was quite ready to be fond of him.

"I hope you're better," he began. "I mustn't stay more than a moment, but I saw some roses in a shop and I thought they were as good an excuse as any other."

"You felt you needed an excuse?"

"I wanted very much to see you; and I hoped these might mollify your mother. Babs, I thought you might like to know that I met Colonel Waring to-day and we're having some enquiries made through the American Embassy. Jack was such a friend of us all...." he added vaguely.

"Oh, I do hope that they'll be able to hear something."

"Yes." George looked round the room and held out his hand. "I promised your mother I wouldn't do more than put my nose in at the door."

"But I want you to stay!"

"And, dearest Babs, you know that's what I want to do more than anything in the world. But I mustn't tire you, and you mustn't tempt me." He lifted her hands from the sheets and bent quickly to kiss them. "You poor child!"

Barbara felt that this time she must explain, if she was not to be maddened with sympathy.

"You mustn't pity me, George," she began.

"I pity any one who's in suspense.... The colonel's absolutely convinced that Jack's all right. Good-bye, Babs."

As he turned abruptly and hurried out of the room, Barbara covered her eyes. George was not only fond of her, he was in love with her; and he had come on purpose to encourage her, against his own interests, with hopes of Jack's safety. There was a dramatic irony in his coming; there would be a further dramatic irony, if she fell in love with him for his sympathy about Jack and then heard that Jack was safe and sound. Or, indeed, if she fell in love with any one else. Because she was overwrought and full of fancies, the shadow of the man in the train was more real than George's substance; the one voice she could remember and reproduce, but George's might have belonged to anybody.... This was her old fear of the punishment which Providence had in store for her, the image of herself passionately reaching out towards some one and finding her way barred by Jack's inexorable ghost.

Suspense. "I pity any one who's in suspense."... It was the uncertainty of the last year which had worn down her strength. And Lady Loring told her to be patient.... Barbara's mind went back to her dinner of a week before and to Amy's chance reference to a new clairvoyant. Mrs. Savage of Knightsbridge.... No other address had been given, but she could find that from Sonia. All her life Barbara had treated impulse as a thing to be welcomed, a hint from destiny, a voice from the darkness. When she awoke next morning, it was to wonder why she had waited so long. On the first day that she was allowed out of the house she went by herself to Knightsbridge and asked, without giving her name, for an interview.

At another time the setting and her own preparations would have amused her. By putting on her most inconspicuous dress and hat, by veiling herself and by sinking her voice to a whisper, she trusted to escape recognition; unconsciously she also induced in her own mind a mysterious expectancy, which was intensified by the atmosphere of the room into which she was shewn. There were no windows, and it was lighted from the ceiling; three low couches ran round the walls, which were covered with yellow silk hangings; occasionally the hangings moved weirdly, as though some one were peeping behind them. Though there were three women already waiting, they were as silent as if, they were watching by the dead; and it had been ingeniously arranged that, while they waited, there should be nothing to distract their attention from the coming invocation of the unknown. They, too, were dressed inconspicuously; they, too, wore thick veils; and the suggestion of stealth and mystery, which they had received from the room and from those whom they had found there, they handed on to the newcomer.

Barbara's nerves were still unstrung, and she had less control of herself than in the old days when she went to the Baroness Kohnstadt's sÉances; then she had gone to be thrilled, but now she was tempted to tell the maid that she could not wait and would come back some other time. But, if she ran away, the other women would guess the reason, and she could never allow another woman to know that she was frightened....

They were staring at her from behind their veils, and she stared coolly back at them until the maid returned and whispered to one that Mrs. Savage could now see her. The hangings moved again; it might have been the draught from the open door, or Mrs. Savage might be having a preliminary look at her clients; certainly it was disquieting, for no one liked to be watched without seeing the watcher.... When next the maid came in, Barbara looked at the clock and noted that interviews lasted for half an hour. She wondered what method the clairvoyant followed—and became suddenly sceptical and disgusted with the whole enterprise. She had done it so often before! Her hand had been read, her character told from her writing; one woman had taken her handkerchief and pressed it to her forehead, another had stared raptly into the time-honoured crystal ball; she had tried planchette and rappings; and from it all she had won nothing but an afternoon's excitement....

It was five o'clock; the last of the women had gone, and Barbara was alone. She pretended to examine the embroidery of the silk hangings and contrived to look behind them, but there was nothing more alarming than an expanse of discoloured plaster. Nerves, again.... But the silence and the waiting were hard to bear; the room was hot, Barbara wanted tea, and one of the women had been using a cheap, disagreeable scent which lingered intolerably. Nothing but a refusal to yield to her fear kept her from running away. She was trying to determine what questions she would ask the clairvoyant, when the maid returned.

"Mrs. Savage says she can see your ladyship now."

Barbara started and nearly cried out; but the maid was watching her, and she passed through the door with elaborate outward unconcern. The second room was similar to the first, for, though there was a window, it was thickly curtained, and the only light came from a standard lamp in one corner. For a moment Barbara could see no one; then Mrs. Savage came forward in a yellow dress which was invisible against the silk hangings. She wore a low yellow turban, covering her hair and half her forehead, and stood with her back to the light.

"Good afternoon, Lady Barbara," she said. "Won't you take off your veil?"

The voice was unfamiliar, but after a moment Mrs. Savage lighted a cigarette and shewed cavernous dark eyes and an aquiline nose set in a curiously narrow face which looked as if the cheek-bones had been crushed together.

"Madame Hilary!"

"Won't you have a cigarette?"

She held out a case, and Barbara took one to gain time. So much had happened since the meeting in Webster's room that it no longer troubled her. The woman was certainly a blackmailer, as she had almost proved when she went to Lord Crawleigh and asked for "temporary assistance." There would, of course, be a terrible scene, if it were ever discovered that Barbara had been to her again, and Mrs. Savage would quite possibly threaten blackmail, if she saw her course clear. On the other hand, now as before, the relative positions were equally strong and equally weak; if she even hinted at a threat, she could be reported to the police.... After the two hours of dreary waiting, Barbara felt stimulated by the prospect of an encounter.

"I never imagined it was you," she said.

"What may I have the honour of doing for you?" asked Mrs. Savage.

Barbara thought for a moment of saying vaguely that she had made a mistake and of escaping as soon as possible. But after the strain of waiting she now felt deliciously free from fear. And "Mrs. Savage" or "Madame Hilary" was not as other clairvoyants; the incident of Jack Summertown proved that; and the opportunity of consulting her was too good to be thrown away. Barbara felt that she was not entitled to throw it away; had she not almost been guided there? Was it coincidence that Amy Loring, of all unlikely people, should have given her the name at all? Was it coincidence that, when there were scores of women plying the same trade, she should come straight and without choice or deliberation to this one?...

"I'd heard about you," Barbara explained. "I didn't know who it was, of course, but I wanted to consult you."

She hesitated and tried to determine what she wanted.

"Yes?"

"I didn't know who it was," Barbara repeated. "But I'm glad to find it is you. Do you remember the man in Mr. Webster's flat?"

"Lord Summertown?"

"Yes. Do you remember what you told him?"

"I told him nothing. It was what he said."

"Well, yes. He said that he was going to die quite soon, that he was going to be killed in a war. Well, that was months before there was any talk of war. Do you know what's happened to him?"

Mrs. Savage shrugged her shoulders a little impatiently, as though such questions were a waste of time.

"He was killed in the war," she said.

She spoke as if she took credit for it, and Barbara shivered.

"Yes.... I saw him just before he went back to barracks. I never saw him again, but I felt then that he was going to be killed. How did you know?"

"He told me, as you heard."

"Yes, but...."

Barbara frowned and sat down, rubbing her forehead gently with her hand.

"I tell nothing, but I persuade people to tell me," explained Mrs. Savage with unconcealed boredom. As she dropped back into the part of "Madame Hilary," "Mrs. Savage" was reviving her old staccato English and giving it a hint of a foreign accent. "People come to me to find out whether their sons and husbands are going to be killed. I do not know. And I tell them so. Then sometimes they allow me to persuade them to tell me. And, in my turn, I can tell them what they have said. But, generally, no! They are afraid of hearing the truth. When their sons and husbands have been killed, when nothing has been heard of them since long, then they come, because they feel that the truth is less hard than the waiting. You have a brother?"

"They're still waiting to go out," answered Barbara.

"And you want to know? I can only tell you, if you tell me first; and you can only tell me, if you know. The lines of life are interlocked. If their lines cross yours, then you know; but, if they are separated.... You understand? It is not likely that you know anything of a man at the other end of the world, whom you have never met, unless it has been ordained that you are to meet him. That is reasonable."

She lighted another cigarette and sat down, looking at Barbara with no apparent interest.

"You want to find out about some one whose life has crossed yours?" she resumed carelessly, and her indifference was more disconcerting than either her stereotyped mysticism or the hostility which she had shewn when Barbara came into the room.

"I want to find out generally," answered Barbara. "All about myself. What I've done and what I'm doing now doesn't matter, but I want to know about the future."

Mrs. Savage laughed and shook her head.

"I know your name," she said. "I know who you are, but I know very little about you. I imagine that your life has been very happy, you have had everything to make it happy. Perhaps it will not always be happy. If you learned that you were going to be very ill or die——"

"I've got to die some time. When I'm seventy-five, I shall know that I'm going to die very soon, because hardly any one lives longer than that. I'm twenty-two now, and I don't in the least mind knowing that I can't live for more than about another fifty years."

"But, if it were five years? I do not know, of course."

"I'd sooner face it, I think."

Mrs. Savage threw away her cigarette impatiently.

"You're a child! And a silly child! Your friend, Lord Summertown—well, I suppose none of you told him what he had said. And I suppose he enjoyed his life to the end. The whole future! Would you like to know that you will marry in a year and be happy and lose your husband after three months and lose your child and marry again—perhaps, this time, some one who will not make you happy? And that then you will have an illness or this or that?... I am talking for your good, because you are nothing but a silly child. I tell you that people will not be persuaded to say to me all they know; they dare not face it. Their present and future happiness——"

"I'm not so very happy," sighed Barbara.

"You are a child. And your friends are being killed, perhaps some one whom you love——"

"I want to know," Barbara interrupted. "Everything's in such a muddle, I want to know what's going to happen...." She paused, but Mrs. Savage only shook her head. "Should I know what I was telling you? No! Lord Summertown didn't. Well, you need only tell me back the things that matter. If you ask me questions and I answer them.... Perhaps I don't want to know if I'm going to die within a year, but there are all sorts of things that I could quite well be told.... Will you do that? Just the things that matter?"

"But I do not know what matters to you. Do you mean, whether your—friends will come through the war without injury?"

"Ye-es. That sort of thing. I want to know if I'm going to be happy. Generally."

"And you believe that I can help you?" Mrs. Savage's voice was changing its quality to a sleepy drone, and Barbara found herself looking into her eyes. "Only you can tell me what you think will make you happy. I know nothing about you except what you tell me. Perhaps you are in love with some man, perhaps you think that he is in danger.... If you will tell me...."

Barbara never knew at what point she began to come under the influence of Mrs. Savage's eyes and voice. At one moment she was begging her to use her powers, at another she was talking very volubly; it was like a dream in which she fancied herself making a speech; words were pouring out of her, and she was astonished to find that they made the nonsense of words in a dream. "The distinction between the articles in counterpoint, if you think of heliotrope quite accidentally included...."

"What have I been saying?" she demanded.

Mrs. Savage leaned back wearily and closed her eyes.

"It is like that, when you return to yourself, to the present.... Lord Summertown was disturbed by that poor girl who cried out."

"But I didn't know.... Did I go off? How long...?" She looked at her watch and found that she had been in the room for three-quarters of an hour. "What did I say?"

"You were a good subject."

"But what did I say?" Barbara repeated. It was the sight of her watch that upset her. In forty-five minutes it was possible to say so much, and she remembered Jack Summertown's almost indecent want of restraint.

"What shall I tell you," mused Mrs. Savage. "You said much, but you described an empty life. Few lines crossed yours; there may be more to come.... But you did not tell me of any loss. Were you afraid of losing some one?"

"No.... I wanted to know, I wanted to—to straighten things out. But I want to know everything I said. You must tell me that."

"You child!"

Barbara sprang up in a grip of terror.

"I've said something awful? You're hiding something from me! It's not fair!"

Mrs. Savage shook her head slowly. She seemed perplexed, and her early hostility had evaporated until she was almost kindly.

"You wanted to know whether you would be happy," she reminded Barbara. "You tell me that you are not going to die this year or next; and you are not going to have any painful or dangerous illnesses. Happy?... There are ups and downs of happiness, you cannot expect to be happy always at the same level. If you have been happy so far, you will be happy again; there will, of course, be ups and downs. What else?"

"I want you to tell me everything I said."

"That I shall not do."

"But why not?"

Mrs. Savage shrugged her shoulders.

"It would not make you any happier. If there is any one thing you want to know...."

Barbara looked at her and looked away. She felt her nerve going.

"What is your fee?" she asked.

Mrs. Savage was still perplexed in expression, but her eyes had lost their momentary softening of kindliness.

"I shall charge you—no fee," she answered.

Barbara turned and ran out of the room.