on and I seized it eagerly. It read as
follows:

"_Dear old boy_:

"As you suggested in your last letters I've had enquiries made
at the war department. Paul Dupont of the 30th dragoons, a
violinist by profession and a reservist called from New York,
aged 31, was killed at the battle of the Marne. I thought I'd
find out about his old people, if I could. Just heard they
abandoned their place before it was destroyed and are living
with a daughter near Suresnes. I sent them a bit of money,
telling them it came from their daughter-in-law. Thought it
might please Madame Dupont, but don't tell her. Am still
driving one of those gasolene wheelbarrows. We're seeing some
hard times. I sometimes feel awfully sorry at what happened. S.
was a fine girl, and I a fool. Glad to hear that 'Land o' Love'
is making a killing.

"Ever your old pal,

"GORDON."

I was glad enough, in a melancholy way, to receive this piece of news.
Frances, while never doubting that her husband was dead, has never had
any positive assurance of the fact. I'll not mention it just now, for it
wouldn't do to awaken her memories before the concert. Time has
reconciled her a little to her loss, I think, and it would be a shame to
disturb her.

Well, there can be no doubt about it. She is entirely free. It is not
possible that such beauty and sweetness as hers shall nevermore know
love. This concert surely means the beginning of a separation which must
come sooner or later. Madame Francesca, as she will be called, can no
longer keep on living in this frittering brownstone relic of better
days. Her singing will probably take her away from us. There may be
concerts and even operatic engagements, who knows? And I shall be left
here with the old calabash and my rickety typewriter. Ye Gods! What an
outlook! I wonder whether it would not be wise for me to go to Fiji or
Yokohama or the Aleutian Islands? I shall get the horrors here all
alone. I'm too clumsy for them ever to take me as an ambulance driver in
France, but, perhaps, they would let me serve as an orderly in the
hospitals. I'll have to think of it!

CHAPTER XXI

THE CONCERT

And so the short weeks went by and the fateful evening came. Frieda had
spent the whole afternoon with Frances. The gown, it appeared, had come
in plenty of time. My formal orders had, of course, been disobeyed, for
women, while they often