aving joined some American Relief Expedition at
Lille--a most dangerous thing to do; insensate, if it were not a mad
attempt to get through to Brussels in disguise to rescue Miss
Warren. No one in the Y.M.C.A. believed for a moment that he had
done anything dishonourable. Most likely he had been killed--as so
many Y.M.C.A. people were just then, assisting to bring in the
wounded or going up to the trenches with supplies. Mrs. Adams had
better be prepared, cautiously, for a bereavement. Rossiter himself
was very sad about it. He had missed Bertie's services much these
last three years. He had never known a better worker--turn his hand
to anything--Such a good indexer, for example.

Linda wondered whether _she_ could do any indexing? Three years ago
Michael would have replied: "_You?_ Nonsense, my dear. You'd only
make a muddle of it. Much better stick to your housekeeping" (which
as a matter of fact was done in those days by cook, butler and
parlour-maid). But now he said, thoughtfully:

"Well--I don't know--perhaps you might. There's no reason you
shouldn't try."

And Linda began trying.

But she also worked regularly in the laboratory now, calling it at
his suggestion the lab, and stumbling no more over the word. She
wore a neat overall with tight sleeves and her hair plainly dressed
under a little white, pleated cap. She never now caught anything
with her sleeve and switched it off the table; she never let
anything drop, and was a most judicious duster and wiper-up.

Rossiter in this autumn of 1917 was extremely interested in certain
crucial experiments he was making with spiculum in sponge-cells;
with scleroblasts, "mason-cells," osteoblasts, and "consciousness"
in bone-cells. Most of the glass jars in which these experiments
were going on (those of the sponges in sea-water) required daylight
for their progress. There was no place for their storage more
suitable than that portion of his studio-laboratory which was above
ground; and the situation of his house in regard to air attacks,
bombs, shrapnel seemed to him far more favourable than the upper
rooms at the College of Surgeons. That great building was often
endangered because of its proximity to the Strand and Fleet Street;
and the Strand and Fleet Street, being regarded by the Germans as
arteries of Empire, were frequently attacked by German air-craft.

But in Rossiter's studio there was an under-ground annex as
continuation of the house cellars; and the