did they? They _did_
not! I hurried right home, all right, all right, but not so Jim. And for
a long while I was sitting there in one of my trousseau dresses and a
fearful state of mind over what had he done to get killed since I last
seen him. But hours went by and still he didn't come. And I didn't know
his 'phone or where he was or anything. The only clue I had that the
whole business was a fact and no dream was the cable, which had come
after he did, saying he would be home as arranged after all.

Believe you me, I hope never to live through another twenty-four hours
like them that followed, because I couldn't eat or sleep, not knowing
where he was.

Next morning I wouldn't even look at the papers which was Sunday and
full of our and the division's pictures. And Monday was worse, because
even although Jim might be alive none of the hospitals nor yet the
morgue had him, and so I commenced to think he had gone back on me. A
telegram come from the coast saying "Great Sunday story bring Rosco
contract follows," but what did I care for that stuff without Jim? Ma
was very silent all this time, and kept in her room a lot, with the door
shut. And then late Monday afternoon the door-bell rung, and my heart
leaped to my feet like it had done at every tinkle for 48 hours, and I
went myself, but it was only Ruby Roselle and Mr. Mulvaney of the
Welcome Home Committee with her! The men that girl knows! Well, she
sees them in another light than I and it's a good thing all tastes don't
run the same. But this was such a surprise I asked them in before I
thought and pretty near forgot my own troubles for a minute.

Ruby cuddled down into her kolinsky wrap and give me the fish-eye, as
she addressed me in her own sweet way as a woman to her best enemy.

"Dearie," she says, tucking in a imaginary curl. "Dear, Johnnie here was
over to my flat and we got speaking of you by accident, and he's anxious
to know where's the money he gave you, and why no decorations as was
intended?"

"Yes, Miss La Tour," says the old bird, which it was plain she had made
a even more perfect fool of him than he had been before. "Yes, Miss La
Tour, it's a serious thing," he says. "I understand you didn't really
call even one meeting and as for decorations--!! Well, what can you tell
us?"

Well, I told him how I come to think of what I thought of, and the jobs
which I had 319 of and the notes and all, and while I talked I could
see plain enough that I