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.

[[221]]

p220 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p221w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p222

v?