Michael:  “Nonsense!  I’m going to be put up at the Palace Hotel.  Jenkins—­you remember the butler of old time?—­Jenkins, and my batman, a refined brigand, a polished robber, have already been there and commandeered something....

“No.  I came here, firstly to find out if you were living; secondly to ask you to marry me” ... (a pause) ... “and thirdly to find out what happened to Bertie Adams.  A message came through the Spanish Legation here, a year and a half ago, to the effect that he had died at Brussels from the consequences of the War.  However, unless you can tell me at once this is all a mistake, we can go into his affairs later.  My first question is—­Oh!  Bother all this cackle.... Will you marry me?”

Vivie:  “Dear, brave Bertie, whom I shall everlastingly mourn, was shot here in Brussels by the abominable Germans, as a spy, on April 8th, 1917.  He was of course no more a spy than you are or I am.  The poor devoted fool—­I rage still, because I shall never be worth such folly, such selfless devotion—­got into Belgium with false passports—­American:  in the hope of rescuing me.  He came and enquired here—­my last address in his remembrance—­and came by sheer bad luck just as the Kaiser was about to arrive.  They jumped to the conclusion that—­”

Rossiter:  “Awfully, cruelly sad.  But you can give me the details of it later on.  You must have a long, long story of your own to tell which ought to be of poignant interest.  But ... will you marry me?  I suppose you know dear Linda died—­was killed by a bomb in a German air-raid last year—­October, 1917.  I really felt heart-broken about it, but I know now I am only doing what she would have wished.  She came at last to talk about you quite differently, quite understanding—­”

Vivie:  “That’s what all widowers say.  They always declare the dead wife begged them to marry again, and even designated her successor.  Poor Linda!  Yes, I read an account of it in a copy of the Times; but I couldn’t of course communicate with you to say how truly, truly sorry I was.  I am glad to know she spoke nicely of me.  Did she really?  Or have you only made it up?”

Michael:  “Of course I haven’t.  She really did.  Do you know, she and I quite altered after the War began?  She lost all her old silliness and inefficiency—­or at any rate only retained enough of the old childishness to make her endearing.  And I really grew to love her.  I quite forgot you.  Yes:  I admit it....

“But somehow, after she was dead the old feeling for you came back ... and without any disloyalty to Linda.  I felt in a way—­I know it is an absurd thing for a man of science to say, for we have still no proof—­I felt somehow as though she lived still.  That’s why I don’t want to get rid of the Park Crescent house.  Her presence seems to linger there.  But I also knew—­instinctively—­that she would like us to come together....  She...”