To have confided her trouble in return was what her aching heart longed to do; and had Humphrey been a woman she would instantly have poured out her tale.

But to him she feared to confess; and there was a real reason for silence, till a sufficient time had elapsed to allow her lover and his comrade to get out of harm's way.
As soon as she reached home again she sought a solitary place, and spent the time in half regretting that she had not gone away, and in dreaming over the meetings with Matthaus Tina from their beginning to their end.
In his own country, amongst his own countrywomen, he would possibly soon forget her, even to her very name.
Her listlessness was such that she did not go out of the house for several days.

There came a morning which broke in fog and mist, behind which the dawn could be discerned in greenish grey; and the outlines of the tents, and the rows of horses at the ropes.

The smoke from the canteen fires drooped heavily.
The spot at the bottom of the garden where she had been accustomed to climb the wall to meet Matthaus, was the only inch of English ground in which she took any interest; and in spite of the disagreeable haze prevailing she walked out there till she reached the well-known corner.
Every blade of grass was weighted with little liquid globes, and slugs and snails had crept out upon the plots.

She could hear the usual faint noises from the camp, and in the other direction the trot of farmers on the road to the town, for it was market-day.