"Naturally."
"I suppose he omitted the signature to avoid any possible leakage through the post-office here."
She nodded. "What do you think is the matter?"
"God knows," said I. "Evidently something very serious."
She went back to the piano seat. "It's odd that I should have taken down that message," she said, after a while.
"I'll sack Marigold for putting you in that abominable position," I exclaimed wrathfully.
"No, you won't, dear. What does it signify? I'm not a silly child. I suppose you're going to-morrow?"
"Of course—for Mrs. Boyce's sake alone I should have no alternative."
She turned round and began to take up the thread of the Nocturne from the point where she had left off; but she only played half a page and quitted the piano abruptly.
"The pretty little spell is broken, Majy. No matter how we try to escape from the war, it is always shrieking in upon us. We're up against naked facts all the time. If we can't face them we go under either physically or spiritually. Anyhow—" she smiled with just a little touch of weariness,—"we may as well face them in comfort."