Matthew remembered her on the train, just after he left, and on the crossing, in the hotel the officers were billeted at before the trenches, in hell, a hell of fog and mud, blood, gas, threaded with screams. He saw her face and all he could think was that she was a pearl, beyond price, Helen and Aphrodite and Morgan Le Fay, she'd bewitched him and he was beguiled. At the heart of it all, Mary was a constant, still and lovely and everything essential, an ideal and full of frailties, her hand trembling as she offered the soft dog.