nstallation_ on a house in Portland Place which communicates with
a similar installation in the Harz Mountains," added Lady Helen.

This was a half-reassuring, half-terrifying statement. It was
comfortable to know that you lived under the Kaiser's wing--Mrs.
Rossiter hoped the aim of the aeronauts was accurate, and their
knowledge of London topography good. At the same time it was
alarming to feel that you might be involved in that final blow up of
the villains which must bring such scoundreldom to a close. But if
Lady Vera and Lady Helen knew all this for a fact, why not tell the
Police? "What would be the good? They'd deny everything and we
should only be sued for libel."

However to form some conception of how English home life was
undermined with plots, she was advised to go and see Mr. Dennis
Eadie in _The Man That Stayed at Home_. She did, taking Mrs. Adams
with her to the Dress Circle for a matinee. Both were very much
impressed, and on their return expected the fireplaces to open all
of a piece and reveal German spies with masked faces and pistols,
standing in the chimney.

At last these and other nightmares were dispelled by the arrival of
Rossiter on leave of absence in the autumn of 1916. He had the rank
of Colonel in the R.A.M.C., and wore the khaki uniform--Mrs.
Rossiter proudly thought--of a General. He had shaved off his beard
and trimmed his moustache and looked particularly soldierly. The
butler who came with him though not precisely a soldier but a sort
of N.C.O. in a medical corps, also looked quite martial, and had so
much to say for himself that Mrs. Rossiter felt he could never
become a butler again. But he did all the same, and a most efficient
one though a little breezy in manner.

Linda now entered on an aftermath of matrimonial happiness. Rossiter
was to take quite a long leave so that he could pursue the most
important researches in curative surgery--bone grafting and the
like; not only in his own laboratory but at the College of Surgeons
and the Zoological Gardens Prosectorium. With only occasional
week-ends at home he had been away from London since September,
1914; had known great hardships, the life of the trenches and the
bomb-proof shelter, stewed tea and bad tinned milk, rum and water,
bully beef, plum and apple jam, good bread, it is true, but shocking
margarine for butter. He had slept for weeks together on an old sofa
more or less dressed, kept warm by his great-coat and two Arm