@@@@on the good-will of the British Government, and it is
@@@@a good-will which we Germans have now learnt to
@@@@distrust."

She read the letter through again. There came
over her a feeling of agony such as she never imagined
any human being could suffer.

During the past weeks of suspense, she had faced
in her own mind many awful possibilities, but of this
possibility she had not thought.

Now she remembered, with piteous vividness, the
straight, kindly gaze in his bright blue eyes -- eyes
which had had a pleasant play of humour in them.
Sight does not mean the same to all men, but she
knew that it meant a very great deal to the man she
loved. He had always been an out-door man, a man
who cared for everything that concerned open-air
life -- for birds, for trees, for flowers, for shooting,
fishing, and gardening.

Ever since she had known that Major Guthrie was
alive and wounded, a prisoner in Germany, she had
allowed her thoughts to dwell on the letters she would
write to him when she received his address. She had
composed so many letters in her mind -- alternative
letters -- letters which should somehow make clear to
him all that was in her heart, while yet concealing it
first from the British Censors and then from his
German jailers.

But now she did not give these Censors and jailers
a thought. She sat down and wrote quite simply and
easily the words which welled up out of her heart:

@@@@"MY DEAREST,
@@@@
@@@@"Today is New Year's Day, and I have had the

[[274]]

p273 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p274w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p275

v?