en by any eyes but mine and yours. I have therefore asked,
and received, permission to send this by an old friend who is
leaving for England with despatches.

"The work has been rather heavy. I have had very little sleep
since Sunday, so you must forgive any confusion of thought or
unsuitable expressions used by me to you. Unfortunately I have
lost my kit, but the old woman in whose cottage I am resting
for an hour has good-naturedly provided me with paper and
envelopes. Luckily I managed to keep my fountain-pen.

"I wish to tell you now what I have long desired to tell
you--that I love you--that it has long been my greatest, nay,
my only wish, that you should become my wife. Sometimes,
lately, I have thought that I might persuade you to let me
love you.

"In so thinking I may have been a presumptuous fool. Be that
as it may, I want to tell you that our friendship has meant a
very great deal to me; that without it I should have been,
during the last four years, a most unhappy man.

"And now I must close this hurriedly written and poorly
expressed letter. It does not say a tenth--nay, it does not
say a thousandth part of what I would fain say. But let me,
for the first, and perhaps for the last time, call you my
dearest."

Then followed his initials "A. G.," and a postscript: "As to what has
been happening here, I will only quote to you Napier's grand words:
'Then was seen with what majesty the British soldier fights.'"

Mrs. Otway read the letter right through twice. Then, slowly,
deliberately, she folded it up and put it back in its envelope.
Uncertainly she looked at her little silk handbag. No, she could not put
it there, where she kept her purse, her engagement book, her
handkerchief. For the moment, at any rate, it would be safest elsewhere.
With a quick furtive movement she thrust it into her bodice, close to
her beating heart.

Mrs. Otway looked up to a sudden sight of Rose--of Rose unusually
agitated.

"Oh, mother," she cried, "such a strange, dreadful, extraordinary thing
has happened! Old Mrs. Guthrie is dead. The butler telephoned to the
Deanery, and he seems in a dreadful state of mind. Mrs. Haworth says she
can't possibly go out there this morning, and they were wondering
whether you would mind going. The Dean says he was out there only
yesterday, and that Mrs. Guthrie spoke as if you wer