o the highest in command, had
plenty of extra work to do.

She did a hundred and one odd jobs which kept her busy until nine
o'clock. A V.A.D. whose duty it was to run the lift was ill; she had had
to go home, so Margaret took her place until a girl-scout appeared, who
was a sister of one of the staff-nurses. The proud girl-scout became
lift-boy in her after-school-hours and kept the post until the V.A.D. was
well enough to resume her work. During the day the V.A.D.s filled the
post between them, taking it in turn.

It was not until all her work was done, and Margaret was alone in her
bedroom, with its air of ghostly fashion, that she found it increasingly
difficult to drive the incident of the automatic writing from her mind.
She did not wish to think of it because of her promise to Freddy. While
she had been busy it had never entered her head. Certainly Satan finds
some mischief for idle thoughts as well as for idle hands to do. But was
it Satan who had sent these thoughts? Was she dabbling in black or in
white magic?

She wondered whether, if she looked at the writing once more, and thought
over every incident of the strange occurrence which had happened to her,
very clearly and thoroughly, it would help her to drive it from her mind,
in the same way as saying some haunting lines of a poem over and over
again will often drown their insistence in our ears. Certainly she must
make an effort to free herself from the obsession of the incident. It
was unnerving her.

She took the sheet of paper out of her note-case and read the writing on
it aloud, very distinctly and slowly. She said the words thoughtfully,
so as to get their precise value. As she read them, she tried her utmost
to subdue the increasing nervousness which they produced, a nervousness
which she certainly had not in any way experienced when her hand had
hurriedly written down the words.

As she read them aloud, she realized with a sudden and astounding
clearness their true meaning, which had either escaped her intelligence,
or she had been too astonished and interested in her own action to
appreciate before. Her first feeling had been one of amazement and
interest; now she felt quite convinced that the message had been sent to
her to tell her that Michael was at the Front, that she was not to
trouble or be afraid, for his safety was in divine hands.

How much or how little her super-senses had understood this fact she
could not be certain