Marie Louise whirled and sped into the house, rang for the maid, and said: "My trunks! Please have them brought down--or up, from wherever they are, will you?" "Your trunks, miss!" "And a taxicab. I shall have to leave at once." "But--oh, I am sorry. Shall I help you pack?" "Thank you, no--yes--no!" The maid went out with eyes popping, wondering what earthquake had sent the guest home alone for such a headlong exit. Things flew in the drowsy house, and Marie Louise's chamber looked like the show-room of a commercial traveler for a linen-house when Polly appeared at the door and gasped: "What in the name of--I didn't know you were sick enough to be delirious!" She came forward through an archipelago of clothes to where Marie Louise was bending over a trunk. Polly took an armload of things away from her and put them back in the highboy. As she set her arms akimbo and stood staring at Marie Louise with a lovable and loving insolence, she heard the sound of a car rattling round the driveway, and her first words were: "Who's coming here at this hour?" "That's the taxi for me," Marie Louise explained. Polly turned to the maid, "Go down and send it away--no, tell the driver to go to the asylum for a strait-jacket." The maid smiled and left. Marie Louise was afraid to believe her own hopes. "You don't mean you want me to stay, do you--not after what that woman said?" "Do you imagine for a moment," returned Polly, "that I'd ever believe a word that cat could utter? Good Lord! if Lady Clifton-Wyatt told me it was raining and I could see it was, I'd know it wasn't and put down my umbrella." Marie Louise rejoiced at the trust implied, but she could not make a fool of so loyal a friend. She spoke with difficulty: "What if what she said was the truth, or, anyway, a kind of burlesque of it?" "Marie Louise!" Polly gasped, and plounced into a chair. "Tell me the truth this minute, the true truth." Marie Louise was perishing for a confidante. She had gone about as far without one as a normal woman can. She sat wondering how to begin, twirling her rings on her fingers. "Well, you see--you see--it is true that I'm not Sir Joseph's daughter. I was born in a little village--in America--Wakefield--out there in the Middle West. I ran away from home, and--" She hesitated, blanched, blushed, skipped over the years she tried not to think of and managed never to speak of. She came down to: "Well, anyway, at last I was in Berlin--on the stage--" "You were an actress?" Polly gasped. Marie Louise confessed, "Well, I'd hardly say that." She told Polly what she had told Mr. Verrinder of the appearance of Sir Joseph and Lady Webling, of their thrill at her resemblance to their dead daughter, of their plea that she leave the stage and enter their family, of her new life, and the outbreak of the war. Major Widdicombe pounded on the door and said: "Are you girls going to talk all night? I've got to get up at seven and save the country."