ight there was one of Sir Joseph's dinners. But almost nobody
came, except Lieutenant Hawdon and old Mr. Verrinder. Sir Joseph and
Lady Webling seemed more frightened than insulted by the last-moment
regrets of the guests. Was it an omen?

It was not many days before Sir Joseph asked Marie Louise to carry
another envelope to Nicky. She went out alone, shuddering in the wet
and edged air. She found the bench agreed on, and sat waiting, craven
and mutinous. Nicky did not come, but another man passed her, looked
searchingly, turned and came back to murmur under his lifted hat:

"Miss Webling?"

She gave him her stingiest "Yis."

"Mr. Easton asked me to meet you in his place, and explain."

"He is not coming?"

"He can't. He is ill. A bad cold only. He has a letter for you. Have
you one for him?"

Marie Louise liked this man even less than she would have liked Nicky
himself. She was alarmed, and showed it. The stranger said:

"I am Mr. von Groener, a frient of--of Nicky's."

Marie Louise vibrated between shame and terror. But von Groener's
credentials were good; it was surely Nicky's hand that had penned the
lines on the envelope. She took it reluctantly and gave him the letter
she carried.

She hastened home. Sir Joseph was in a sad flurry, but he accepted the
testimony of Nicky's autograph.

The next day Marie Louise must go on another errand. This time her
envelope bore the name of Nicky and the added line, "_Kindness of Mr.
von Groener._"

Von Groener tried to question Marie Louise, but her wits were in an
absolute maelstrom of terror. She was afraid of him, afraid that
he represented Nicky, afraid that he did not, afraid that he was a
real German, afraid that he was a pretended spy, or an English
secret-service man. She was afraid of Sir Joseph and his wife, afraid
to obey them or disobey them, to love them or hate them, betray them
or be betrayed. She had lost all sense of direction, of impetus,
of desire.

She saw that Sir Joseph and Lady Webling were in a state of panic,
too. They smiled at her with a wan pity and fear. She caught them
whispering often. She saw them cling together with a devotion that
would have been a burlesque in a picture seen by strangers. It would
have been almost as grotesque as a view of a hippopotamus and his mate
cowering hugely together and nuzzling each other under the menace of a
lightning-storm.

Marie Louise came upon them once comparing the envelope she had just
br