But he walked home through the moonlit streets both puzzled and distressed--till he reached his club in Pall Mall, where the news coming through on the tape quickly drove everything out of his soldier's mind but the war.
* * * * * Mrs.Gaddesden was sitting as usual in the hall at Mannering.

A mild February was nearly out.

It would be the first of March on the morrow.
Every moment she expected to hear the Fallerton taxi draw up at the front door--bringing Elizabeth Bremerton back to Mannering.

She had been away more than a month.

Mrs.Gaddesden went back in thought to the morning when it had been announced to the Squire by his pale and anxious secretary that she had had bad news of her invalid mother, and must go home at once.