She laughed tremulously as he took her hand.

"Yes indeed, I will," she promised. And she stood awhile staring after
him. She was glad he had come to Hampton, and yet she did not even know
his name.




CHAPTER XVI

She had got another place--such was the explanation of her new activities
Janet gave to Hannah, who received it passively. And the question dreaded
about Ditmar was never asked. Hannah had become as a child, performing
her tasks by the momentum of habituation, occasionally talking simply of
trivial, every-day affairs, as though the old life were going on
continuously. At times, indeed, she betrayed concern about Edward,
wondering whether he were comfortable at the mill, and she washed and
darned the clothes he sent home by messenger. She hoped he would not
catch cold. Her suffering seemed to have relaxed. It was as though the
tortured portion of her brain had at length been seared. To Janet, her
mother's condition when she had time to think of it--was at once a relief
and a new and terrible source of anxiety.

Mercifully, however, she had little leisure to reflect on that tragedy,
else her own sanity might have been endangered. As soon as breakfast was
over she hurried across the city to the Franco-Belgian Hall, and often
did not return until nine o'clock at night, usually so tired that she
sank into bed and fell asleep. For she threw herself into her new labours
with the desperate energy that seeks forgetfulness, not daring to pause