"Well, well?" she asked open-mouthed.
"Well, I am going off to the police barrack to try and see Violet's friend. Mother told me last night that she heard the procession was not to pass through our street at all, but was to turn up by the cathedral and across the market square to the station; and then poor Violet could not see it at all, or hear any of the music. Mother says she is glad, but I am not a bit; for look at this, Ella." Fritz drew from his trowsers pocket a little crumpled scrap of paper and spread it out upon the palm of his hand. "She dropped this out of the window to me last night;—and I know this one thing." Fritz spoke in a curious, husky voice, and turned away his face.
"What thing, Fritz?"
"Violet will never send me any more notes. Look at this;—I was half an hour before I could make it out."
There was a large V, and then a lot of trembling up-and-down strokes without any pretence at printing, only there was a dot over one stroke, and a letter something like a "t" at the end; then came the word "wants," pretty fairly readable; then another trembling set of meaningless lines, and the word "angels;" and again a word which Fritz after much trouble had made out to be "sing."
"Violet wants to hear the angels sing;" that was her message.
"And I am going straight now to the barracks, and I shall show this to our policeman, and he shall go to the general's wife, and they shall arrange together that the procession is to go through this street. I have settled it all in the night when I was lying awake."
"Perhaps the general's wife will not do it."