to allow. She herself had had her "doots," and kept them to
herself; but all Mr. Simpson's surmisings had been freely expressed and
reiterated in the housekeeper's room; and never a word about any
honourable lead passed Mr. Simpson's lips. Therefore Mrs. Graem berated
him for being so ready to "go astray and speak lies." But Maggie, the
housemaid, had always felt sure Mr. Simpson knew more than he said.
"Said more than he knew, you mean," prompted old Margery. "No,"
retorted Maggie, "I know what I said; and I said what I meant." "You
may have said what you meant, but you did not mean what you knew,"
insisted Margery; "and if anybody says another word on the matter, _I_
shall say grace and dismiss the table," continued old Margery,
exercising the cloture, by virtue of her authority, in a way which
Simpson and Maggie, who both wished for cheese, afterwards described as
"mean."

But this was long after the uneventful Tuesday, when Simpson entered,
with a salver; and, finding Jane enveloped in the Times, said: "A
telegram for you, miss."

Nurse Rosemary took it; apologised for the interruption, and opened it.
It was from the duchess, and ran thus:

MOST INCONVENIENT, AS YOU VERY WELL KNOW; BUT AM LEAVING EUSTON
TO-NIGHT. WILL AWAIT FURTHER ORDERS AT ABERDEEN.

Nurse Rosemary smiled, and put the telegram into her pocket. "No
answer, thank you, Simpson."

"Not bad news, I hope?" asked Garth.

"No," replied Nurse Rosemary; "but it makes my departure on Thursday
imperative. It is from an old aunt of mine, who is going to my 'young
man's' home. I must be with him before she is, or there will be endless
complications."

"I don't believe he will ever let you go again, when once he gets you
back," remarked Garth, moodily.

"You think not?" said Nurse Rosemary, with a tender little smile, as
she took up the paper, and resumed her reading.

The second telegram arrived after luncheon. Garth was at the piano,
thundering Beethoven's Funeral March on the Death of a Hero. The room
was being rent asunder by mighty chords; and Simpson's smug face and
side-whiskers appearing noiselessly in the doorway, were an
insupportable anticlimax. Nurse Rosemary laid her finger on her lips;
advanced with her firm noiseless tread, and took the telegram. She
returned to her seat and waited until the hero's obsequies were over,
and the last roll of the drums had died away. Then she opened the
orange envelope. And as she opened it, a strange thi