found you all that was kind and good. Still, it is surely only natural
to want _some_ confirmation----" He checked himself there, and reverted
abruptly to my letter to Mrs. Finch. The silence of the rector's wife
evidently alarmed him. "How long is it since you wrote?" he inquired.

"As long ago as the first of this month," I replied.

He fell into thought. We ascended the next flight of stairs in silence.
At the landing, he stopped me, and spoke again. My unanswered letter was
still uppermost in his mind.

"Mrs. Finch loses everything that _can_ be lost," he said. "Is it not
likely--with her habits--that when she had written her answer, and wanted
your letter to look at to put the address on it, your letter was like her
handkerchief or her novel, or anything else--not to be found?"

So far, no doubt, this was quite in Mrs. Finch's character. I could see
that--but my mind was too much pre-occupied to draw the inference that
followed. Oscar's next words enlightened me.

"Have you tried the Poste-Restante?" he asked.

What could I possibly have been thinking of! Of course, she had lost my
letter. Of course, the whole house would be upset in looking for it, and
the rector would silence the uproar by ordering his wife to try the
Poste-Restante. How strangely we had changed places! Instead of my clear
head thinking for Oscar, here was Oscar's clear head thinking for Me. Is
my stupidity quite incredible? Remember, if you please, what a weight of
trouble and anxiety had lain on my mind while I was at Marseilles. Can
one think of everything while one is afflicted, as I was? Not even such a
clever person as You can do that. If, as the saying is, "Homer sometimes
nods"--why not Madame Pratolungo?

"I never thought of the Poste-Restante," I said to Oscar. "If you don't
mind going back a little way, shall we inquire at once?"

He was perfectly willing. We went downstairs again, and out into the
street. On our way to the post-office, I seized my first opportunity of
making Oscar give me some account of himself.

"I have satisfied your curiosity, to the best of my ability," I said, as
we walked arm-in-arm through the streets. "Now suppose you satisfy mine.
A report of your having been seen in a military hospital in Italy, is the
only report of you which has reached me here. Of course, it is not true?"

"It is perfectly true."

"You, in a hospital, nursing wounded soldiers?"

"That is exactly what I have been doing."

N