There was a rumour which reached Mannering after the second
battle of Ypres that he had been killed. The Chicksands' household
believed it for twenty-four hours.
Then he was discovered--gassed and stunned--in a shell-hole, and
there had been a long illness and convalescence. During the
twenty-four hours when he was believed to be dead, Pamela had spent
the April daylight in the depths of the Mannering woods, in tangled
hiding-places that only she knew. It was in the Easter holidays. She
was alone at Mannering with an old governess, while her father was
in London. The little wrinkled Frenchwoman watched her in silence,
whenever she was allowed to see her. Then when on the second morning
there came a telegram from Chetworth, and Pamela tore it open,
flying with it before she read it to the secrecy of her own room,
the Frenchwoman smiled and sighed. 'Ca, c'est l'amour!' she said to
herself, 'assurement c'est l'amour!' And when Pamela came down
again, radiant as a young seraph, and ready to kiss the apple-red
cheek of the Frenchwoman--the rarest concession!--Madame Guerin did
not need to be told that Arthur Chicksands was safe and likely to be
sound.
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