row way where girls
sitting at typewriters were busily working. But they had all kind,
intelligent faces, and they all seemed anxious to help and speed her on
her way.

"Mrs. Vereker? Oh yes, you'll find her at once if you go along that
gallery and open the door at the end."

She walked through into a vast room where a domed and painted ceiling
now looked down on a very curious scene. With the exception of some
large straight settees, all the furniture which had once been in this
great reception-room had been cleared away. In its place were large
office tables, plain wooden chairs, and wire baskets piled high with
letters and memoranda. The dozen or so people there were all intent on
work of some sort, and though now and again some one got up and walked
across to ask a question of a colleague, there was very little coming or
going. Personal inquirers generally came early in the day.

As she stood just inside the door, Mary Otway knew that it was here,
twenty years ago, that she had seen the principal guests gathered
together. She recalled the intense interest, the awe, the sympathy with
which she had looked at one figure in that vanished throng. It had been
the figure of a woman dressed in the deep mourning of a German widow,
the severity of the costume lightened only by the beautiful Orders
pinned on the breast.

At the time she, the girl of that far-off day, had only just come back
from Germany, and the Imperial tragedy, which had as central figure one
so noble and so selfless, had moved her eager young heart very deeply.
She remembered how hurt she had felt at hearing her cousin mutter to his
wife, "I'm sorry she is here. She oughtn't to have come to this kind of
thing. Royalties, especially foreign Royalties, should have no
politics." And with what satisfaction she had heard Mrs. Hayley's
spirited rejoinder: "What nonsense! She hasn't come because it's
political, but because it's English. She loves England, and everything
to do with England!"

The vision faded, and she walked forward into the strangely changed
room.

"Can I speak to Mrs. Vereker?" she asked, timidly addressing one of the
ladies nearest the door. Yet it was with unacknowledged relief that she
received the answer: "I'm so sorry, but Mrs. Vereker isn't here. She
left early this afternoon. Is there anything I can do for you? Do you
want to make inquiries about a prisoner?"

And then, as Mrs. Otway said, "Yes," the speaker went on quickly, "I
t