Mrs. Otway heard Rose's news with no sense of surprise. She felt as if she were living in a dream--a dream which was at once poignantly sad and yet exquisitely, unbelievably happy. "I have been there several times lately," she said, in a low voice, "and I had grown quite fond of her. Of course I'll go. Will you telephone for a fly? I'd rather be alone there, my dear." Rose lingered on in the garden for a moment. Then she said slowly, reluctantly: "And mother? I'm afraid there's rather bad news of Major Guthrie. It came last night, before Mrs. Guthrie went to bed. The butler says she took it very bravely and quietly, but I suppose it was that which--which brought about her death." "What _is_ the news?" Mrs. Otway's dream-impression vanished. She got up from the basket-chair in which she had been sitting, and her voice to herself sounded strangely loud and unregulated. "What is it, Rose? Why don't you tell me? Has he been killed?" "Oh, no--it's not as bad as that! Oh! mother, don't look so unhappy--it's only that he's 'wounded and missing.'" CHAPTER XVIII "No, ma'am, there was nothing, ma'am, to act, so to speak, in the nature of a warning. Mrs. Guthrie had much enjoyed your visit, and, if I may say so, ma'am, the visit of your young lady, last Thursday. Yesterday she was more cheerful-like than usual, talking a good bit about the Russians. She said that their coming to our help just now in the way they had done had quite reconciled her to them." Howse, Major Guthrie's butler, his one-time soldier-servant, was speaking. By his side was Mrs. Guthrie's elderly maid, Ponting. Mrs. Otway was standing opposite to them, and they were all three in the middle of the pretty, cheerful morning-room, where it seemed but a few hours ago since she and her daughter had sat with the old lady. With the mingled pomp, enjoyment, and grief which the presence of death creates in a certain type of mind, Howse went on speaking: "She made quite a hearty tea for her--two bits of bread and butter, and a little piece of tea-cake. And then for her supper she had a sweetbread--a sweetbread and bacon. It's a comfort to Cook now, ma'am, to remember as how Mrs. Guthrie sent her a message, saying how nicely she thought the bacon had been done. Mrs. Guthrie always liked the bacon to be very dry and curly, ma'am." He stopped for a moment, and Mrs. Otway's eyes filled with tears for the first time. On entering the house, she had at once been shown the War Office telegram stating that Major Guthrie was wounded and missing, and she had glanced over it with shuddering distress and pain, while her brain kept repeating "wounded and missing--wounded and missing." What exactly did those sinister words signify? How, if he was missing, could they know he was wounded? How, if he had been wounded, could he be missing?