Many a heartache, in this wise, has
been cured in the Houses of Pain.
Now, nothing much would have happened, I suppose, if Phyllis,
driven from the hospital by superior decree that she should take
fresh air and exercise, had not been walking some days afterwards
across the common by the canal. Bordering the latter, Wellingsford
has an avenue of secular chestnuts of which it is inordinately
proud. Dispersed here and there are wooden benches sanctified by
generations of lovers. Carven thereon are the presentments, often
interlaced, of hearts that have long since ceased to beat; lonely
hearts transfixed by arrows, which in all probability survived the
wound and inspired the owner to the parentage of a dozen children;
initials once, individually, the record of many a romance, but
now, collectively, merely an alphabet run mad.
Phyllis entered the avenue, practically deserted at midday, and
rested, a pathetically lonely little grey-uniformed figure on one
of the benches. On the common, some distance behind her, stretched
the lines of an Army Service train, with mules and waggons, and
here and there a tent. In front of her, beyond the row of trees,
was the towing-path; an old horse in charge of a boy jogged by,
pulling something of which only a moving stove pipe like a
periscope was visible above the bank.
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