ing with acquaintances and neighbours, the usual rather futile
exchange of remarks about the War, or about the local forms of war and
charitable work in which she and they were now all engaged. The
stillness and the solitariness of the evening walk soothed her sore and
burdened heart.

Often she would walk to Dorycote and back, feeling that the darkened
streets--for Witanbury had followed the example of London--and, even
more, the country roads beyond, were haunted, in a peaceful sense, by
the presence of the man who had so often taken that same way from his
house to hers.

It was during one of these evening walks that there came to her a gleam
of hope and light, and from a source from which she would never have
expected it to come.

She was walking swiftly along on her way home, going across the edge of
the Market Square, when she heard herself eagerly hailed with "Is it
Mrs. Otway?" She stopped, and answered, not very graciously, "Yes, I'm
Mrs. Otway--who is it?"

There came a bubble of laughter, and she knew that this was a very old
acquaintance indeed, a Mrs. Riddick, whom she had not seen for some
time.

"I don't wonder you didn't know me! It's impossible to see anything by
this light. I've been having such an adventure! I only came back from
Holland yesterday. I went to meet a young niece of mine there--you know,
the girl who was in Germany so long."

"In Germany?" Mrs. Otway turned round eagerly. "Is she with you now? How
I should like to see her!"

"I'm afraid you can't do that. She's gone to Scotland. I sent her off
there last night. Her parents have been nearly frantic about her!"

"Did she see--did she hear anything of the English prisoners while she
was in Germany?" Mrs. Otway's voice sounded strangely pleading in the
darkness, and the other felt a little surprised.

"Oh, no! She was virtually a prisoner herself. But I hear a good deal of
information is coming through--I mean unofficial information about our
prisoners. My sister--you know, Mrs. Vereker--is working at that place
they've opened in London to help people whose friends are prisoners in
Germany. She says they sometimes obtain wonderful results. They work in
with the Geneva Red Cross, and from what I can make out, it's really
better to go there than to write to the Foreign Office. I went and saw
my sister yesterday, when I was coming through London. I was really most
interested in all she told me--such pathetic, strange stories, such
he