sk if you would like me to write to you regularly with
news of Mrs. Guthrie?"

"Will you really? How good of you; I didn't like to ask you to do that!
I know how busy you always are." But he still lingered, as if loth to go
away. Perhaps he was waiting on in the hope that Rose would come in.

"Do you know where you will land in France?" she asked, more to say
something than for any real reason, for she knew very little of France.

"I am not sure," he answered hesitatingly. And then, "Still, I have a
very shrewd idea of where they are going to fix the British base. I
think it will be Boulogne. But, Mrs. Otway? Perhaps I ought to tell you
again that all I've told you to-day is private. I may count on your
discretion, may I not?" He looked at her a little anxiously.

"Of course I won't tell any one," she said quickly. "You really do mean
not any one--not even the Dean?"

"Yes," he said. "I really do mean not any one. In fact I should prefer
your not telling even Miss Rose."

"Oh, let me tell Rose," she said eagerly. "I always tell her everything.
She is far more discreet than I am!" And this was true.

"Well, tell Miss Rose and no one else," he said. "I don't even know
myself when I am going, where I am going, or how I am going."

They were now standing in the hall.

"Then you don't expect to be long in London?" she said.

"No. I should think I shall only be there two or three days. Of course
I've got to get my kit, and to see people at the War Office, and so on."
He added in a low voice, "There's not going to be any repetition of the
things that went on at the time of the Boer War--no leave-takings, no
regiments marching through the streets. It's our object, so I
understand, to take the Germans by surprise. Everything is going to be
done to keep the fact that the Expeditionary Force is going to France a
secret for the present. I had that news by the second post; an old
friend of mine at the War Office wrote to me."

He gripped her hand in so tight a clasp that it hurt. Then he turned the
handle of the front door, opened it, and was gone.

* * * * *

Mrs. Otway felt a sudden longing for sympathy. She went straight into
the kitchen. "Anna!" she exclaimed, "Major Guthrie is going back into
the Army! England is sending troops over to the Continent to help the
Belgians!"

"Ach!" exclaimed Anna. "To Ostend?" She had once spent a summer at
Ostend in a boarding-house, where she had b