how there is only one thing worse that could be than
that -- don't we, ma'am?"

"I don't quite know what you mean, Howse."

"Why, the finding and identifying of the Major's
body, ma'am."

Through the still, silent house there came a loud,
long, insistent ringing -- that produced by an old-fashioned
front door bell.

"I expect it's Mr. Allen," exclaimed Howse. "He
wired as how he'd be down by two o'clock." And a
few moments later a tall, dark, clean-shaven man was
shaking hands, with the words, "I think you must be
Mrs. Otway?"

There was little business doing just then among London
solicitors, and so Mr. Allen had come down himself.
He had a very friendly regard for his wounded
and missing client, and his recollection of the interview
which had taken place on the day before Major Guthrie
had sailed with the First Division of the Expeditionary
Force was still very vivid in his mind.

His client had surprised him very much. He had
thought he knew everything about Major Guthrie and
Major Guthrie's business, but before receiving the latter's
instructions about his new will he had never
heard of Mrs. Otway and her daughter. Yet, if Major
Guthrie outlived his mother, as it was of course reasonable,
even under the circumstances, to suppose that he
would do, a considerable sum of money was to pass
under his will to Mrs. Otway, and, failing her, to her
only child, Rose Otway.

Strange confidences are very often made to lawyers,
quite as often as to doctors. But Major Guthrie, when

[[195]]

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v?