ought with other letters of Nicky's. Sir Joseph slipped them into a
book, then took one of them out cautiously and showed it to Marie
Louise.

"Does that look really like the writing from Nicky?"

"Yes," she said, then, "No," then, "Of course," then, "I don't know."

Lady Webling said, "Sit down once, my child, and tell me just how this
man von Groener does, acts, speaks."

She told them. They quizzed her. She was afraid that they would take
her into their confidence, but they exchanged querying looks and
signaled caution.

Sir Joseph said: "Strange how long Nicky stays sick, and his
memory--little things he mixes up. I wonder is he dead yet. Who
knows?"

"Dead?" Marie Louise cried. "Dead, and sends you letters?"

"Yes, but such a funny letter this last one is. I think I write him
once more and ask him is he dead or crazy, maybe. Anyway, I think I
don't feel so very good now--mamma and I take maybe a little journey.
You come along with, yes?"

A rush of desperate gratitude to the only real people in her world led
her to say:

"Whatever you want me to do is what I want to do--or wherever to go."

Lady Webling drew her to her breast, and Sir Joseph held her hand in
one of his and patted it with the flabby other, mumbling:

"Yes, but what is it we want you to do?"

From his eyes came a scurry of tears that ran in panic among the folds
of his cheeks. He shook them off and smiled, nodding and still patting
her hand as he said:

"Better I write one letter more for Mr. von Groener. I esk him to come
himself after dark to-night now."

Marie Louise waited in her room, watching the sunlight die out of the
west. She felt somehow as if she were a prisoner in the Tower, a
princess waiting for the morrow's little visit to the scaffold. Or did
the English shoot women, as Edith Cavell had been shot?

There was a knock at the door, but it was not the turnkey. It was the
butler to murmur, "Dinner, please." She went down and joined mamma and
papa at the table. There were no guests except Terror and Suspense,
and both of them wore smiling masks and made no visible sign of their
presence.

After dinner Marie Louise had her car brought round to the door. There
was nothing surprising about that. Women had given up the ancient
pretense that their respectability was something that must be policed
by a male relative or squire except in broad daylight. Neither vice
nor malaria was believed any longer to come from exposure to