month; they had lived in it.

She finished, eagerly smiling:

"I can practise my religion just as much with you as with Sarah
Churcher, can't I? Queen was on your committee, too. Yes, I shan't be
deserting her."

The remark disquieted his triumph. That aspect of the matter had not
occurred to him.




Chapter 36

COLLAPSE


Late of that same afternoon G.J., in the absence of the chairman,
presided as honorary secretary over a meeting of the executive
committee of the Lechford hospitals. In the course of the war the
committee had changed its habitation more than once. The hotel which
had at first given it a home had long ago been commandeered by the
Government for a new Government department, and its hundreds of
chambers were now full of the clicking of typewriters and the
dictation of officially phrased correspondence, and the
conferences which precede decisions, and the untamed footsteps of
messenger-flappers, and the making of tea, and chatter about cinemas,
blouses and headaches. Afterwards the committee had been the guest of