Rowington saw burning eyes in a dead white face, and a slim, dark figure drawn up tragically tense. He went home miserably with this picture in his mind. For all her bravery she had not restored his drooping faith in Triona. And Olivia sat, when he had left her, staring at public disgrace. Against that she could not fight. The man she had loved was a shadow, a non-existent thing; but she bore his name. She had sworn to keep bright the honour of the name before the world. And now the world would sweep it into the dustbin of ignominy. A maddening sense of helplessness, growing into a great terror, got possession of her. The next morning, when Myra brought in her letters, she felt ill and feverish after a restless night. One of the envelopes bore Triona’s familiar handwriting. She seized it eagerly. It would give some address, so that she could summon him back to make a fight for his honour. But there was no address. She read it through, and then broke into shrill harsh laughter. “He says he’s going out this morning to fight for the sacred cause of Poland.” Myra, who was pottering about the room, turned on her sharply. As soon as Olivia was quieter, she sent for the doctor. Later in the day, there came a nurse, and Myra was banished most of the day from the beloved bedside. Thus it came about that the next morning no correspondence or morning papers were brought into Olivia’s room. And that is why Myra, who preferred the chatty paragraphs to leaders and political news, said nothing to her mistress of a paragraph stuck away in the corner of the paper. It was only a few lines—issued by the police—though Myra did not know that—to the effect that a well-dressed man with papers on him giving the name of John Briggs had been knocked over by a motor-lorry the previous morning and had been taken unconscious to University College Hospital. CHAPTER XX MYRA stood by the screened-off bed in the long ward and looked unemotionally at the unconscious man. “Yes,” she said to the Sister, “that is Mr. John Briggs. I know him intimately.” “Are you a relative?” “He has no relatives.” “You see, in a case like this, we have to report to the police. It’s their business to find somebody responsible.” “I’m responsible,” said Myra. The Sister looked at the tall, lean woman, so dignified in her well-made iron grey coat and skirt and plain black hat, and was puzzled to place her socially. She might be an austere lady of high degree; on the other hand, she spoke with an odd, country accent. It was, at any rate, nine hundred and ninety-nine to one that she was a genuine friend of the patient; but there was the remaining one in a thousand that she belonged to the race of cranks not unfamiliar in London hospitals. “It’s only a matter of formality,” said the Sister, “but one must have some proof.” So Myra drew her bow at a venture. “Mr. Briggs was going abroad—to Poland.”