“I want to tell you something,” muttered Timmy.  “I want to tell you two things.  I want to tell you that I’m sure George is in Heaven.  I don’t know if you know, but I sometimes see people who are dead.  I saw Pete Cobbett once.  He was standing by the back door of the post-office, and that old dog of theirs saw him too; it was just before we got the news that he was killed, so I thought he was back on leave.  But I’ve never seen George—­sometimes I’ve felt as if he were there, but I’ve never seen him.”

For a moment Radmore wondered if he had heard the words aright.  What could the child mean?  Did Timmy claim the power to see spirits?

“Now I’ll tell you the second thing,” went on Timmy, his voice dropping to a whisper.  “The last time George was home he came into the night nursery one night.  Nanna was still busy in the kitchen, so I was by myself.  I have a room all to myself now, but I hadn’t then.  George came in to say a special good-bye to me—­he was going off the next morning very early, and Betty wanted to be the only one up to see him go; I mean really early, half past five in the morning.  And then—­and then—­he said to me:  ’You’ll look after Betty, Timmy?  If anything happens to me you’ll take my place, won’t you, old chap?  You’ll look after Betty all the days of her life?’ I promised I would, and so I will too.  But I haven’t told her what George said, and you mustn’t tell anybody.  I’ve only told you because you’re my godfather.”

CHAPTER IX

Mrs. Crofton was walking restlessly about her new home—­the house that was so new to her, and yet, if local tradition could be trusted, one of the oldest inhabited dwellings in that part of England.

She had felt so sure that Godfrey Radmore would manage to get away from Old Place, and call on her this afternoon, for Jack Tosswill had told her that he was arriving before tea—­she felt depressed and disappointed though she had not yet given up hope.

She wondered if he would come alone the first time, or if one of the girls would accompany him.  She felt just a little afraid of Rosamund—­Rosamund was so very pretty with all the added, evanescent charm of extreme youth.  She told herself that it was lucky that she, Enid, and Godfrey Radmore were already friends, and good friends too.

Twice she went up into her bedroom and gave a long, searching, anxious look at herself in the narrow panel mirror which she had fixed on to one of the cupboard doors.  That there is no truer critic of herself, and of her appearance, than a very pretty woman, is generally true even of the vainest and most self-confident of her sex.

Enid Crofton had put on a white serge skirt, and a white woolen jumper, the only concession to her new widowhood being that the white jumper was bordered in pale grey of a shade that matched her shoes and stockings.  Though her anxious surveys of herself had been reassuring, she felt nervous, and a trifle despondent.  She did not like the country—­the stillness even of village life got on her nerves.  Still, Beechfield was very different from the horribly lonely house in Essex to which she never returned willingly in her thoughts—­though sometimes certain memories of all that had happened there would thrust themselves upon her, refusing to be denied.