what her motive had been in coming; whether she had deliberately sought me or stumbled on me simply by accident. I would have known her anywhere, though I had been blind and deaf, by the fragrance of Jacqueminot that clung about her.

She had come to the tiny landing on the second floor, when something familiar in her surroundings struck her. She stood there holding the handle of the door and wrinkling her forehead. "It's odd," she whispered; "I can't understand it." She turned the handle and entered. The room smelt stuffy; its windows had not been opened since she was last there. The sunlight, pouring in, revealed motes of dust which rose up dancing every time she stirred. In the grate were the accumulated ashes of many fires. Drawn across the hearth was the shabby couch. Nothing had been altered since she had left it. She passed her hand across her eyes, "It can't be; it would be too strange to find it like that." Then she started to reconstruct the scene as she remembered it. "Robbie was there against the window, asking how many Huns his daddy had brought down, and I was sitting here in the shadow, when quite suddenly we heard his tread on the stairs. The door opened; he said something about being sorry that he'd frightened us, and then.... Why yes, I'm positive." She stepped out onto the verandah and stood looking down into the square. When she turned to re-enter her eyes were moist and shining. "You are the little house. Oh, little house, I've dreamt of you so often. Does he dream of you too, where he is out there? Was I right to run away and to doubt him? If you had a tongue you could tell me; did he say hard things about me when he found me gone on coming back?"