t came off upon the
occupant's clothes at the slightest touch. There was a bench fixed to
the wall, and in a corner a bed, also fixed to the ground. A little
light came in from the window high out of reach, and in the middle of
the ceiling hung a disused gas bracket.

Those of Anna Bauer's personal possessions she had been allowed to bring
with her were lying on the bed.

The old woman was sitting on the bench, her head bowed in an abandonment
of stupor, and of misery. She did not even move as the door opened. But
when she heard the kind, familiar voice exclaim, "Anna? My poor old
Anna!--it is terrible to find you here, like this!" she drew a
convulsive breath of relief, and lifted her tear-stained, swollen face.

"I am innocent!" she cried wildly, in German. "Oh, gracious lady, I am
innocent! I have done no wrong. I can accuse myself of no sin."

Mr. Reynolds brought in a chair. Then he went out, and quietly closed
the door.

Anna's mistress came and sat on the bench close to her servant. It was
almost as if an unconscious woman, spent with the extremity of physical
suffering, crouched beside her.

"Anna, listen to me!" she said at last, and there was a touch of
salutary command in her voice--a touch of command that poor Anna knew,
and always responded to, though it was very seldom used towards her. "I
have left Major Guthrie on our marriage day in order to try and help you
in this awful disgrace and trouble you have brought, not only on
yourself, but on me. All I ask you to do is to tell me the truth.
Anna?"--she touched the fat arm close to her--"look up, and talk to me
like a reasonable woman. If you are innocent, if you can accuse yourself
of no sin--then why are you in such a state?"

Anna looked up eagerly. She was feeling much better now.

"Every reason have I in a state to be! A respectable woman to such a
place brought! Roughly by two policemen treated. I nothing did that
ashamed of I am!"

"What is it you _did_ do?" said Mrs. Guthrie patiently. "Try and collect
your thoughts, Anna. Explain to me where you got"--she hesitated
painfully--"where you got the bombs."

"No bombs there were," exclaimed Anna confidently. "Chemicals,
yes--bombs, no."

"You are mistaken, Anna," said Mrs. Guthrie quietly. She rose from the
bench on which she had been sitting, and drew up the chair opposite to
Anna. "There were certainly bombs found in your room. It is a mercy they
did not explode; if they had done, we shou