"It depends," said Elizabeth, "on how much money I had. If it was a lot, I would send a detective to recover it. But sending a detective would cost a lot." Buff thought deeply for a few seconds. "I know what I would do," he said. "I would send a _bloodhound_--_steerage_." _CHAPTER XIX_ "How wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?" "As dying, and behold we live." You know, of course, Gentle Reader, that there can be no end to this little chronicle? You know that when a story begins in 1913, 1914 will follow, and that in that year certainty came to an end, plans ceased to come to fruition--that, in fact, the lives of all of us cracked across. Personally, I detest tales that end in the air. I like all the strings gathered up tidily in the last chapter and tied neatly into nuptial knots; so I should have liked to be able to tell you that Elizabeth became a "grateful" wife, and that she and Arthur Townshend lived happily and, in fairy-tale parlance, never drank out of an empty cup; and that Stewart Stevenson ceased to think of Elizabeth (whom he never really approved of) and fell in love with Jessie Thomson, and married her one fine day in "Seton's kirk," and that all Jessie's aspirations after refinement and late dinner were amply fulfilled. But, alas! as I write (May 1917) the guns still boom continuously out there in France, and there is scarce a rift to be seen in the war-clouds that obscure the day. Jessie Thomson is a V.A.D. now and a very efficient worker, as befits the daughter of Mrs. Thomson. She has not time to worry about her mother's homely ways, nor is she so hag-ridden by the Simpsons. Gertrude Simpson, by the way, is, according to her mother, "marrying into the Navy--a Lieutenant-Commander, no less," and, according to Mrs. Thomson, is "neither to haud nor bind" in consequence. Stewart Stevenson went on with his work for three months after war began, but he was thinking deeply all the time, and one day in November he put all his painting things away--very tidily--locked up the studio and went home to tell his parents he had decided to go. His was no martial spirit, he hated the very name of war and loathed the thought of the training, but he went because he felt it would be a pitiful thing if anyone had to take his place. His mother sits among the time-pieces in Lochnagar and knits socks, and packs parcels, and cries a good deal. Both she and her husband have grown much greyer, and they somehow appear smaller. Stewart, you see, is their only son.