e one of her dearest
friends. Wasn't that strange?"

Rose looked very much shocked and distressed--curiously so, considering
how little she had known Mrs. Guthrie. But there is something
awe-inspiring to a young girl in the sudden death of even an old person.
Only three days ago Mrs. Guthrie had entertained Rose with an amusing
account of her first ball--a ball given at the Irish Viceregal Court in
the days when, as the speaker had significantly put it, it really _was_
a Court in Dublin. And when Rose and her mother had said good-bye, she
had pressed them to come again soon; while to the girl: "I don't often
see anything so fresh and pretty as you are, my dear!" she had
exclaimed.

Mrs. Otway heard Rose's news with no sense of surprise. She felt as if
she were living in a dream--a dream which was at once poignantly sad and
yet exquisitely, unbelievably happy. "I have been there several times
lately," she said, in a low voice, "and I had grown quite fond of her.
Of course I'll go. Will you telephone for a fly? I'd rather be alone
there, my dear."

Rose lingered on in the garden for a moment. Then she said slowly,
reluctantly: "And mother? I'm afraid there's rather bad news of Major
Guthrie. It came last night, before Mrs. Guthrie went to bed. The butler
says she took it very bravely and quietly, but I suppose it was that
which--which brought about her death."

"What _is_ the news?"

Mrs. Otway's dream-impression vanished. She got up from the basket-chair
in which she had been sitting, and her voice to herself sounded
strangely loud and unregulated.

"What is it, Rose? Why don't you tell me? Has he been killed?"

"Oh, no--it's not as bad as that! Oh! mother, don't look so
unhappy--it's only that he's 'wounded and missing.'"

CHAPTER XVIII

"No, ma'am, there was nothing, ma'am, to act, so to speak, in the nature
of a warning. Mrs. Guthrie had much enjoyed your visit, and, if I may
say so, ma'am, the visit of your young lady, last Thursday. Yesterday
she was more cheerful-like than usual, talking a good bit about the
Russians. She said that their coming to our help just now in the way
they had done had quite reconciled her to them."

Howse, Major Guthrie's butler, his one-time soldier-servant, was
speaking. By his side was Mrs. Guthrie's elderly maid, Ponting. Mrs.
Otway was standing opposite to them, and they were all three in the
middle of the pretty, cheerful morning-room, where it seemed but a few