r in the streets. Among them were women who were crying,
or protesting angrily or comforting others. But she had seen the same
thing before and would not let herself look at people or hear anything
she could shut her ears against. Some new thing had happened, perhaps
the Germans had taken some important town and wreaked their vengeance on
the inhabitants, perhaps some new alarming move had been made and
disaster stared the Allies in the face. She staggered through the crowds
in the station and did not really know how she reached Eaton Square.

Half an hour later she was sitting at her desk quiet and neat in her
house dress. She had told the Duchess all she could tell her of her
visit to old Mrs. Bennett.

"We both cried a good deal," she explained when she saw her employer
look at her stained eyes. "She keeps remembering what they were like
when they were babies--how rosy and fat they were and how they learned
to walk and tumbled about on her little kitchen floor. And then how big
they grew and how fine they looked in their khaki. She says the worst
thing is wondering how they look now. I told her she mustn't wonder. She
mustn't think at all. She is quite well taken care of. A girl called
Mary Ann comes in three times a day to wait on her--and her daughter
comes when she can but her trouble has made her almost wander in her
mind. It's because they are _all_ gone. When she comes in she forgets
everything and sits and says over and over again, 'If it had only been
Tom--or only Tom and Will--or if it had been Jem--or only Jem and
Tom--but it's Will--and Jem--and Tom,'--over and over again. I am not at
all sure I know how to comfort people. But she was glad I came."

When Lord Coombe came in to make his daily visit he looked rigid
indeed--as if he were stiff and cold though it was not a cold night.

He sat down by the Duchess and took a telegram from his pocket. Glancing
up at him, Robin was struck by a whiteness about his mouth. He did not
speak at once. It was as though even his lips were stiff.

"It has come," he said at last. "Killed. A shell." The Duchess repeated
his words after him. Her lips seemed stiff also.

"Killed. A shell."

He handed the telegram to her. It was the customary officially
sympathetic announcement. She read it more than once. Her hands began to
tremble. But Coombe sat with face hidden. He was bowed like an old man.

"A shell," he said slowly as if thinking the awful thing out. "That I
hear