The day came for the flight, but she had forgotten it.  She went in the morning to the new house, picnicked there, and returned to Del Monte only at dusk.  She was thinking on the way back of several things she would put in the diary she kept for Nick, sending it off to him in a fat envelope the first of each month.  One bit of news she wanted to tell him was that his favourite flowers—­pansies—­were to be planted in a great bed under the windows of her own room.  “Then, whenever I look out, I shall think of you.  Not that I shouldn’t do that anyway.”  She wondered if she had better add that last sentence, or if it would be better to leave it out.

“There’s a telegram for you, Mrs. May; just this minute come,” said the hotel clerk.

Angela took it, her heart beating fast, for whenever a telegram arrived—­which happened seldom—­she always wondered if it would tell her that, for some good reason or other, Nick was coming.  But he never had come, and had never telegraphed.

She opened the envelope, and glanced first at the signature:  “James Morehouse.”  Why should he have wired?  Then she read: 

   “In flight to-day aeroplane fell into Sea off Sardinia.  Aeronaut
   killed.  Companion injured.  Forgive abruptness.  Wished get ahead of
   newspapers.”

For a moment she felt absolutely unconcerned, as if reading of the death of some stranger aeronaut, of Japan or South America.  Then: 

“I hope you’ve not got bad news, Mrs. May?” a concerned voice was saying.  She was vaguely conscious that the hotel clerk who had given her the telegram was hovering distressfully before her.  She had been standing up when she began to read the message.  Now she was sitting down.  But her voice sounded quite calm and natural in her own ears as she answered, “No, thank you very much.  A surprise—­that is all.  A great surprise.”

“You are all right?”

“Oh, quite—­quite!”

“Nothing I can do for you?”

“Nothing, thanks.  I will go up to my room.”

* * * * *

Her first thought, when she could think connectedly, was to send her unfinished letter to Nick, with a few hastily scribbled words at the end—­not about the pansies.  And perhaps to enclose the telegram.

But she did neither.  Two days passed before she sent the long diary letter, and when she did send it, nothing more had been written.  She waited.  She did not know what would happen.  She did not even read the newspapers, though she knew there must be paragraphs, not tucked into corners, for this was, in a way, world’s news.  There had been “considerable interest.”

On the third day she was given another telegram.  This time the name at the bottom was the only name that could make her heart beat: 

   “I have seen what has happened.  When will you let me come?”