tly, "No, it's next door to the right. A lot of people
makes that mistake. Luckily the family are away just now--or it would be
even a greater botheration than it is!"

Sick at heart, she turned and walked around the paved courtyard till she
reached the street. Then she turned to her right. A door flush on the
street was hospitably open, throwing out bright shafts of light into the
darkness. Could it be--she hoped it was--here?

For a moment she stood hesitating in the threshold. The large hall was
brilliantly lit up, and at a table there sat a happy-faced, busy-looking
little Boy Scout. He, surely, would not repulse her? Gathering courage
she walked up to him.

"Is this the place," she asked, "where one makes inquiries about
prisoners of war?"

He jumped up and saluted. "Yes, madam," he said civilly. "You've only
got to go up those stairs and then round the top, straight along. There
are plenty of ladies up there to show you the way."

As she walked towards the great staircase, and as her eyes fell on a
large panoramic oil painting of a review held in a historic English park
a hundred years before, she remembered that it was here, in this very
house, that she had come to a great political reception more than twenty
years ago--in fact just after her return from Germany. She had been
taken to it by James Hayley's parents, and she, the happy, eager girl,
had enjoyed every moment of what she had heard with indignant surprise
some one describe as a boring function.

As she began walking up the staircase, there rose before her a vision of
what had been to her so delightful and brilliant a scene--the women in
evening dress and splendid jewels; the men, many of them in uniform or
court dress; all talking and smiling to one another as they slowly made
their way up the wide, easy steps.

She remembered with what curiosity and admiration she had looked at the
figure of her host. There he had stood, a commanding, powerful, slightly
stooping figure, welcoming his guests. For a moment she had looked up
into his bearded face, and met his heavy-lidded eyes resting on her
bright young face, with a half-smile of indulgent amusement at her look
of radiant interest and happiness.

This vivid recollection of that long-forgotten Victorian "crush" had a
good effect on Mary Otway. It calmed her nervous tremor, and made her
feel, in a curious sense, at home in that great London house.

Running round the top of the staircase was a nar