And then the other answered quietly, “No, he’s not my brother. Major Guthrie and I are engaged to be married.”
The kind, sweet face, itself a sad and anxious face, changed a little—it became even fuller of sympathy than it had been before. “You must try and keep up courage,” she exclaimed. “And remember one thing—if Major Guthrie was really severely wounded, he’s probably being very well looked after.” She waited a moment, and then went on, “In any case, you haven’t the anguish of knowing that he’s in perpetual danger; my boy is out there, so I know what it feels like to realize that.”
There was a moment of silence, and then, “I wonder,” said Mrs. Otway, “if you would mind having the inquiries telegraphed to-night?” She opened her bag. “I brought a five-pound note——”
But the other shook her head. “Oh, no. You needn’t pay anything,” she said. “We’re always quite willing to telegraph if there’s any good reason for doing so. But you know it’s very important that the name should be correctly spelt, and the particulars rightly transmitted. That’s why it’s really better to write. But of course I’ll ask them to telegraph to you at once if they get any news here on a day or at a time I happen to be away.”
Together they walked to the door of the great room, and the woman whose name she was not to know for a long time, and who was the first human being to whom she had told her secret, pressed her hand warmly.
Quietly Mrs. Otway walked through into the gallery, and then she burst out crying like a child. It was with her handkerchief pressed to her face that she walked down the gallery, and so round to the great staircase. No one looked at her as she passed so woefully by; they were all only too well used to such sights. But before she reached the front door she managed to pull herself together, and was able to give the jolly little Boy Scout a friendly farewell nod.
CHAPTER XXI
Early that afternoon, after her mother had left the Trellis House, Rose went upstairs to her own room. She had been working very hard all that morning, helping to give some last touches of prettiness and comfort to the fine, airy rooms at “Robey’s,” which had now been transformed into Sir Jacques Robey’s Red Cross Hospital. As a matter of fact, everything had been ready for the wounded who, after having been awaited with anxious impatience for weeks, were now announced as being due to arrive to-morrow.
Meanwhile Anna, her hands idle for once, sat at her kitchen table. She was wearing her best black silk apron, and open in front of her was her Gesangbuch, or hymnbook.
Thus was Anna celebrating the anniversary of her husband’s death. Gustav Bauer had been a very unsatisfactory helpmeet, but his widow only chose to remember now the little in him that had been good.