p depression. It seemed to her that
Alfred Head no longer enjoyed her company as he used to do. He had
ordained that they must always speak English, even when alone; and to
her mingled anger and surprise he had told her plainly that, in spite of
his solemn assurance, he neither could nor would pay her the fifty
shillings which was now owing to her in connection with that little
secret matter arranged between herself and Willi three years ago.

About this question of the fifty shillings Mr. Head had behaved very
strangely and rudely indeed. He had actually tried to persuade her _that
he knew nothing of it_--that it was not he but someone else who had
given her the five half-sovereigns on that evening of the 4th of August!
Then when she, righteously indignant, had forced the reluctant memory
upon him, he had explained that everything was now different, and that
the passing of this money from him to her might involve them both in
serious trouble.

Anna had never heard so flimsy an excuse. She felt sure that he was
keeping her out of the money due to her because business was not quite
so flourishing now as it had been.

CHAPTER XXVII

The days went on, and to Mrs. Otway's surprise and bitter
disappointment, there came no answer to the letter she had written to
the German surgeon. She had felt so sure that he would write again very
soon--if not exactly by return, then within a week or ten days.

The only people she told were Major Guthrie's solicitor, Robert Allen,
and her daughter. But though both, in their different ways, sympathised
with her deeply, neither of them could do anything to help her. Rather
against her will, Mr. Allen wrote and informed his client of Mrs.
Guthrie's death, asking for instructions concerning certain urgent
business matters. But even that letter did not draw any answer from the
Field Lazarette.

As for Rose, she soon gave up asking if another letter had come, and to
Mrs. Otway's sore heart it was as if the girl, increasingly absorbed in
her own not always easy problem of keeping Jervis happy under the
painful handicap of his present invalid condition, had no time to spare
for that of anyone else. Poor Rose often felt that she would give, as
runs the old saying, anything in the world to have her man to herself,
as a cottage wife would have had hers by now--with no nurses, no
friends, no doctor even, save perhaps for a very occasional visit.

But Mrs. Otway was not fair to Rose; in