ed speaking slowly. Under the stress of her nervousness she
forgot the correct demeanor for a high-class parlor-maid and became a
country girl, twisting the corner of her white, starched apron in her
hands.

"I was noticing the address on that letter your Lordship gave me to
post." Tabs thought quickly, "Hullo, we're in for it. That was foolish
of me. She's put two and two together."

But Ann reassured him in her next sentence. "It was to a General at the
War Office and I was thinking that he might help. Braithwaite and I had
an understanding. I'm not saying we were engaged; we weren't. We didn't
tell anybody. But we'd made up our minds to get married if he ever came
back. If I'd been engaged to him, I'd have a right to make enquiries;
but now, in most people's eyes, I was nothing to him. That's--that's the
hardest part of it. You see, sir, he was never reported dead or missing
or anything. I just stopped hearing from him. So I thought that if this
General was your Lordship's friend----"

Tabs' brain had been working. He already had a plan. "You thought that I
might persuade him to use his influence to have the records searched?"

She glanced up hopefully. "That's what I was thinking. Would he do it
for your Lordship? I don't know how to set about things myself. It's
this--this," she almost broke down, "this uncertainty that's a-killing
of me. Sister knows about her man, but I----"

Tabs saw the redness of sleeplessness in her eyes; it was true--the
uncertainty was killing her. "Don't upset yourself by talking about it,"
he said kindly. "I'll write to the General and post my request on my way
out."

He had supposed he had dismissed her and had seated himself at his desk.
A sound behind him warned him; he looked across his shoulder to find her
still hovering in the doorway.

She answered his unspoken question as to why she was delaying. "Aren't
there any particulars that your Lordship ought to have? Things like his
regimental number, and his birthday, and where he was born, and all
that? And wouldn't this help?"

"What's that?"

She pulled out from her apron-pocket an envelope. "It's one of his
letters. If the General was to see it, he'd know I had the right."

"May I glance through it?"

Tabs unfolded the scribbled sheets of paper. They were torn from an Army
note-book.

_"My darling Ann:

The jolly old war drags on and seems as though it were never going to
end. Not that I've much to kick abou