Lady Webling said, "Sit down once, my child, and tell me just how this man von Gröner does, acts, speaks." She told them. They quizzed her. She was afraid that they would take her into their confidence, but they exchanged querying looks and signaled caution. Sir Joseph said: "Strange how long Nicky stays sick, and his memory--little things he mixes up. I wonder is he dead yet. Who knows?" "Dead?" Marie Louise cried. "Dead, and sends you letters?" "Yes, but such a funny letter this last one is. I think I write him once more and ask him is he dead or crazy, maybe. Anyway, I think I don't feel so very good now--mamma and I take maybe a little journey. You come along with, yes?" A rush of desperate gratitude to the only real people in her world led her to say: "Whatever you want me to do is what I want to do--or wherever to go." Lady Webling drew her to her breast, and Sir Joseph held her hand in one of his and patted it with the flabby other, mumbling: "Yes, but what is it we want you to do?" From his eyes came a scurry of tears that ran in panic among the folds of his cheeks. He shook them off and smiled, nodding and still patting her hand as he said: "Better I write one letter more for Mr. von Gröner. I esk him to come himself after dark to-night now." Marie Louise waited in her room, watching the sunlight die out of the west. She felt somehow as if she were a prisoner in the Tower, a princess waiting for the morrow's little visit to the scaffold. Or did the English shoot women, as Edith Cavell had been shot? There was a knock at the door, but it was not the turnkey. It was the butler to murmur, "Dinner, please." She went down and joined mamma and papa at the table. There were no guests except Terror and Suspense, and both of them wore smiling masks and made no visible sign of their presence. After dinner Marie Louise had her car brought round to the door. There was nothing surprising about that. Women had given up the ancient pretense that their respectability was something that must be policed by a male relative or squire except in broad daylight. Neither vice nor malaria was believed any longer to come from exposure to the night air; nor was virtue regarded like a sum of money that must not be risked by being carried about alone after dark. It had been easy enough to lose under the old régime. So Marie Louise launched out in her car much as a son of the family might have done. She drove to a little square too dingily middle class to require a policeman. She sounded her horn three squawks and swung open the door, and a man waiting under an appointed tree stepped from its shadow and into the shadow of the car before it stopped. She dropped into high speed and whisked out of the square. "You have for me a message," said Mr. von Gröner. "Yes. Sir Joseph wants to see you." "Me?" "Yes--at the house. We'll go there at once if you please." "Certainly. Delighted. But Nicky--I ought to telephone him I shall be gone."