silver candlesticks shed a soft light on the table set at the far end of
the hall, where dinner, apparently, was just at an end.

Three people were sitting at the table, a woman at the head, who, even
before I had taken in the details I have just set down, I knew to be
Monica, though her back was towards me. On one side of the table was a
big, heavy man whom I recognized as Clubfoot, on the other side a pale
slip of a lad in officer's uniform with only one arm ... Schmalz, no
doubt.

A servant said something to Monica, who, asking permission of her
companions by a gesture, left the table and came across the hall. To my
surprise, she was dressed in deepest black with linen cuffs. Her face was
pale and set, and there was a look of fear and suffering in her eyes
that wrung my very heart.

I had shuffled into the last place of the row in which the head keeper
had ranged us. Monica spoke a word or two to each of the men, who
shambled off in turn with low obeisances. Directly she stopped in front
of me I knew she had recognized me--I felt it rather, for she made no
sign--though the time I had had in Germany had altered my appearance, I
dare say, and I must have looked pretty rough with my three days' beard
and muddy clothes.

"Ah!" she said with all her languor _de grande dame_, "you are the man
of whom Heinrich spoke. You have just come out of hospital, I think?"

"Beg the Frau Graefin's pardon," I mumbled out in the thick patois of the
Rhine which I had learnt at Bonn, "I served with the Herr Graf in
Galicia, and I thought maybe the Frau Graefin ..."

She stopped me with a gesture.

"Herr Doktor!" she called to the dinner-table.

By Jove! this girl had grit: her pluck was splendid.

Clubfoot came stumping over, all smiles after his food and smoking a
long cigar that smelt delicious.

"Frau Graefin?" he queried, glancing at me.

"This is a man who served under my husband in Galicia. He is ill and out
of work, and wishes me to help him. I should wish, therefore, to see him
in my sitting-room, if you will allow me...."

"But, Frau Graefin, most certainly. There surely was no need ..."

"Johann!" Monica called the servant I had seen before, "take this man
into the sitting-room!"

The servant led the way across the hall into a snugly furnished library
with a dainty writing-desk and pretty chintz curtains. Monica followed
and sat down at the desk.

"Now tell me what you wish to say ..." she began in German as