ard anything of Michael since the
eventful winter night when she had handed him a cup of coffee in the
free-refreshment-room at the large northern station. She did not even
know what regiment he was in. That, of course, was owing to her own
stupidity; it was a matter of constant regret to her that she had not
at the time had the forethought to ask the weeping woman on the
platform what regiment her husband was in. Knowing nothing more than
that Michael was at the Front, all she could do was to keep an eye on
each day's casualty list in _The Times_ newspaper. But even as her
eyes hastily scanned the long columns of small print, she said to
herself, "I need not look--his name will not be there. I have had my
assurance of his safety."

She was certain now that the mystic message, which lay locked away in
the dispatch-box which held her most important papers, had been sent to
her to help her. It had been given to her to lessen her loneliness and
to ease her anxiety.

Of course, this state of certainty had its feebler moments, and many,
many times as she did her day's work she became affected by the waves
of pessimism which spread at intervals over the British Isles. At
these times she went about the pantry chalk-faced and tragic-eyed; but
generally, when her suffering was becoming more than she could endure,
from visualizing Michael blind, or limbless, or, still worse, an
imbecile through shell-shock, a clear voice would speak to her, her
super-self would repeat the contents of her treasured message.

The fact that her hand had written the message before and not after
Michael's going to the Front established her confidence in it. If it
had been after, her sound judgment told her that suggestion might have
had something to do with the automatic writing.

It was early spring, and Margaret's country-loving nature cried out for
the smell of damp fields, for the scents and the sounds of untrodden
paths. The long twilight evenings seemed the loneliest hours to her in
London. Their beauty was wasted. But the real country was denied her,
for what distance could her two-hours-off take her from London?
Scarcely beyond soot-blackened trees and the prim avenues of suburban
respectability. But she had one great pleasure to look forward to--the
Iretons were to be in London for the season, or, rather, what used to
be termed the season in London.

They were to arrive in Clarges Street that very night. They were
coming to