hat I shall hear from him as soon as he can
find time to write a proper letter."

She waited a few moments, and then went on: "Of course I felt a little
upset when I realised that Alick had really gone on active service. But
I know how he would have felt being left behind."

Then, rather to her visitor's discomfiture, Mrs. Guthrie turned the
subject away from her son, and from what was going on in France. She
talked determinedly of quite other things--though even then she could
not help going very near the subject.

"I understand," she exclaimed, "that Lady Bethune is giving up her
garden-party to-morrow! I'm told she feels that it would be wrong to be
merrymaking while some of our men and officers may be fighting and
dying. But I quite disagree, and I'm sure, my dear, that you do too. Of
course it is the duty of the women of England, at such a time as this,
to carry on their social duties exactly as usual."

"I can't quite make up my mind about that," replied her visitor slowly.

When Mrs. Otway rose to go, the old lady suddenly softened. "You'll come
again soon, won't you?" she said eagerly. "Though I never saw two people
more unlike, still, in a curious kind of way, you remind me of Alick!
That must be because you and he are such friends. I suppose he wrote to
you before leaving England?" She looked rather sharply out of her still
bright blue eyes at the woman now standing before her.

Mrs. Otway shook her head. "No, Major Guthrie did not write to me before
leaving England."

"Ah, well, he was very busy, and my son's the sort of man who always
chooses to do his duty before he takes his pleasure. He can write quite
a good letter when he takes the trouble."

"Yes, indeed he can," said Mrs. Otway simply, and Mrs. Guthrie smiled.

As she walked home, Mary Otway pondered a little over the last words of
her talk with Mrs. Guthrie. It was true, truer than Mrs. Guthrie knew,
that she and Major Guthrie were friends. A man does not press an
unsolicited loan of a hundred pounds on a woman unless he has a kindly
feeling for her; still less does he leave her a legacy in his will.

And then there swept a feeling of pain over her burdened heart. That
legacy, which she had only considered as a token of the testator's
present friendly feeling, had become in the last few hours an ominous
possibility. She suddenly realised that Major Guthrie, before leaving
England, had made what Jervis Blake had once called "a steeplechase