A thin, sad-faced woman told them that Mr. Stratman was in his office. She eyed them curiously as, with a jerk of her head, she motioned them through a little gate. As Gyp with trembling fingers opened the door of the inner office, a man with a noticeable white streak in his hair pulled his feet down from his desk, dropped a cigar on his pen tray and reached for a coat that lay across another chair. "Is--is this Mr. Stratman?" asked Gyp, wishing her tongue would not cling to the roof of her mouth. He nodded and waited. These young girls were not like his usual customers, probably they had some sort of a subscription blank with them. He watched warily. "Our errand is--is private," stumbled Gyp, who could see that Pat was beyond the power of speech. "It's--it's personal. We've come, in fact, of--our own accord--she doesn't know a thing about it----" "She? Who?" "Miss--Miss Gray." Gyp glanced wildly around. Oh, she was making a dreadful mess of it! Why _didn't_ Pat produce the letter instead of standing there like a wooden image? Being an undertaker, Mr. Wilbur Stratman met a great many women whom he never remembered. "H-m, Miss Gray--of course," he nodded. Encouraged, Gyp plunged on, with the one desire of getting the ordeal over with. "She's dreadfully unhappy. She's been faithful to you all these years and she's lived in a little boarding house and worked and worked and wouldn't marry anyone else and----" With an instinct of self-defense Mr. Stratman rose to his feet and edged ever so little toward the door. Plainly these two very young women were stark mad! "I am very sorry for Miss Gray but--what can I do?" "Oh, _can't_ you marry her _now_? She's still very pretty----" Gyp was trembling but undaunted. The precipice was there--she had to make the leap! The undertaker paused in his contemplated flight to stare--then he laughed, a loud, hoarse laugh that sent the hot blood tingling to Gyp's face. "Who ever heard the beat of it! A proposal by proxy! _Ha! ha!_ My business is _burying_ and not _marrying_! Ha! Ha! Pretty good! _I_ don't know your Miss Gray. Even if I did I can't get away with a husky wife and six children at home!" Pat pulled furiously at Gyp's sleeve. A chill that felt like a cold stream of water ran down Gyp's spine. "I don't get on to what you're after, Miss what-ever-your name is, but you're in the wrong pew. _I_ never knew a Miss Gray that I can remember and I guess somebody's been kidding you." Pat suddenly found her tongue--in the nick of time, too, for a paralysis of fright had finished poor Gyp. "We must have made a mistake, Mr. Stratman. We are very sorry to have bothered you. We are in search of a certain--party that--that has--a white streak--in his hair."