“Well, go over with the orderly to the Cabinet room and take down their ciphers. Hurry back though,” said Foray as Allison slipped on his coat—both officers had been working in their shirt sleeves—“we need you here. We are so short-handed in the office now that I don’t know how we are going to get through to-night. I can’t handle four instruments, and——”
“I will do my best,” said Allison, turning away rapidly.
He bowed as he did so to a little party which at that moment entered the room through the door, obstructing his passage. There were two very spick and span young officers with Miss Caroline Mitford between them, while just behind loomed the ponderous figure of old Martha.
“You wait in the hall right here, Martha; I won’t be long,” said Caroline, pausing a moment to let the others precede her.
The two young men stopped on either side of the door and waited for her.
“Miss Mitford,” said the elder, “this is the Department Telegraph Office.”
“Thank you,” said Caroline, entering the room with only the briefest of acknowledgments of the profound bows of her escorts.
She was evidently very much agitated and troubled over what she was about to attempt. The two young men followed her as she stepped down the long room.
“I am afraid you have gone back on the Army, Miss Mitford,” said one of them pleasantly.
“Gone back on the Army, why?” asked Caroline mystified.