g order, which
might be expected to forward letters. She had therefore come prepared
to reproach the girl. But ...

"_Je le jure_, madame," said Jeanne.

And Peggy believed her.

"But I wrote to Monsieur McPhail, giving him my address in Paris."

"He lost the letter before he saw Doggie again"--the name slipped
out--"and forgot the address."

"But how did you find me?"

"I had a lot of difficulty. The British Embassy--the Prefecture of
Police----"

"_Mon Dieu!_" cried Jeanne again. "Did you do all that for me?"

"For my cousin."

"You called him Doggie. That is how I know him and think of him."

"All right," smiled Peggy. "For Doggie then."

Jeanne's brain for a moment or two was in a whirl--Embassies and
Prefectures of Police!

"Madame, to do this, you must love him very much."

"I loved him so much--I hope you will understand me--my French I know
is terrible--but I loved him so much that until he came home wounded
we were _fiances_."

Jeanne drew a short breath. "I felt it, madame. An English gentleman
of great estate would naturally marry an English lady of his own
social class. That is why, madame, I acted as I have done."

Then something of what Jeanne really was became obvious to Peggy. Lady
or no lady, in the conventional British sense, Jeanne appealed to her,
in her quiet dignity and restraint, as a type of Frenchwoman whom she
had never met before. She suddenly conceived an enormous respect for
Jeanne. Also for Phineas McPhail, whose eulogistic character sketch
she had accepted with feminine reservations subconsciously derisive.

"My dear," she said. "_Vous etes digne de toute dame
anglaise!_"--which wasn't an elegant way of putting it in the French
tongue---but Jeanne, with her odd smile of the lips, showed that she
understood her meaning; she had served her apprenticeship in the
interpretation of Anglo-Gallic. "But I want to tell you. Doggie and I
were engaged. A family matter. Then, when he came home wounded--you
know how--I found that I loved some one--_aimais d'amour_, as you
say--and he found the same. I loved the man whom I married. He loved
you. He confessed it. We parted more affectionate friends than we had
ever been. I married. He searched for you. My husband has been killed.
Doggie, although wounded, is alive. That is why I am here."

They were sitting in a corner of the ante-room, and before them passed
a continuous stream of the busy life of the war, civilians, officers,
bad