never mentioning Major Guthrie
and the terrible misfortune which had befallen him, she was treating
her mother as she herself would have wished to be treated in a like
case.

A great trouble overshadows all little troubles. One disagreeable
incident which, had life been normal with her then, would have much
irritated and annoyed the mistress of the Trellis House, was the arrival
of a curt notice stating that her telephone was to be disconnected,
owing to the fact that there resided in her house an enemy alien in the
person of one Anna Bauer.

Now the telephone had never been as necessary to Mrs. Otway as it was to
many of her acquaintances, but lately, since her life had become so
lonely, she had fallen into the way of talking over it each morning with
Miss Forsyth.

Miss Forsyth, whom the people of Witanbury thought so absurdly
old-fashioned, had been one of the very first telephone subscribers in
Witanbury. But she had sternly set her face against its frivolous and
extravagant use. This being so, it was a little strange that she so
willingly spent five minutes or more of her morning work-time in talking
over it to Mrs. Otway. But Miss Forsyth had become aware that all was
not well with her friend, and this seemed the only way she was able to
help in a trouble or state of mental distress to which she had no
clue--though sometimes a suspicion which touched on the fringe of the
truth came into her mind.

During these morning talks they would sometimes discuss the War. Mrs.
Otway never spoke of the War to anyone else, for even now she could not
bring herself to share the growing horror and, yes, contempt, all those
about her felt for Germany. Miss Forsyth was an intelligent woman, and,
as her friend knew, had sources of information denied to the amateur
strategists and gossips of Witanbury Close. So it was that the forced
discontinuance of the little morning talk, which so often brought
comfort to Mrs. Otway's sore heart, was a real pain and loss.

She had made a spirited protest, pointing out that all her neighbours
had the telephone, and that by merely asking any of them to allow her
servant to send a message, she could circumvent this, to her, absurd and
unnecessary rule. But her protest had only brought a formal
acknowledgment, and that very day her telephone had been disconnected.

She would have been astonished, even now, had she known with what
ever-swelling suspicion some of her neighbours and acquaintances