or
at any rate its disappearance, before she, Anna, could learn its
contents; and, evidently in consequence of the telegram, her mistress's
hurried packing and departure for London.

Then had followed a long, empty day, the old woman's feelings of
uneasiness and curiosity being but little relieved by Rose's eager
words, uttered late on the same evening: "Oh, Anna, didn't mother tell
you the great news? Major Guthrie is coming home. She has gone up to
meet him!" The next morning Mrs. Jervis Blake herself had gone to
London, this being the first time she had left her husband since their
marriage.

There had come another day of trying silence for Anna, and then a letter
from Rose to her old nurse. It was a letter which contained astounding
news. Mrs. Otway was coming back late to-night, and was to be
married--_married_, to-morrow morning in the Cathedral, to Major
Guthrie!

The bride-elect sent good old Anna her love, and bade her not worry.

Of all the injunctions people are apt to give one another, perhaps the
most cruel and the most futile is that of not to worry. Mrs. Otway had
really meant to be kind, but her message gave Anna Bauer a most unhappy
day. The old German woman had long ago made up her mind that when it
suited herself she would leave the Trellis House, but never, never had
it occurred to her that anything could happen which might compel her to
do so.

At last, when evening fell, she felt she could no longer bear her
loneliness and depression. Also she longed to tell her surprising news
to sympathetic ears.

All through that long day Anna Bauer had been making up her mind to go
back to Germany. She knew that there would be no difficulty about it,
for something Mrs. Otway had told her a few weeks ago showed that many
German women were going home, helped thereto by the British Government.
As for Willi and Minna, however bitterly they might feel towards
England, they would certainly welcome her when they realised how much
money, all her savings, she was bringing with her.

As she walked quickly along--getting very puffy, for she was stout and
short of breath--it seemed to her as if the kindly old city, where she
had lived in happiness and amity for so many years, had changed in
character. She felt as if the windows of the houses were frowning down
at her, and as if cruel pitfalls yawned in her way.

Her depression was increased by her first sight of the building for
which she was bound, for, as she