“I thought you had given up art.”
“Perhaps I shall see Adelaide,” I added; “or, rather, I will see her.” I looked at him rather inquiringly. To my relief he said:
“Have you not seen her since her marriage?”
“No; have you?”
“She was my angel nurse when I was lying in hospital at ——. Did you not know that she has the Iron Cross? And no one ever won it more nobly.”
“Adelaide—your nurse—the Iron Cross?” I ejaculated. “Then you have seen her?”
“Seen her shadow to bless it.”
“Do you know where she is now?”
“With her husband at ——. She told me that you were in England, and she gave me this.”
He handed me a yellow, much-worn folded paper, which, on opening, I discovered to be my own letter to Adelaide, written during the war, and which had received so curt an answer.