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Holt leaned forward with her elbows on the table and her hands clasped under her chin.
    â€œOh, Em—and you telling me what a nice pair they were, and how loving they looked!”
    â€œThat was after he came back from Dunkirk, when he was getting well after his wound.”
    â€œAugust,” said Mrs. Holt. “I remember as well as well your coming home and telling me they’d been into the office together, and those were your very words—‘Such a nice pair.’”
    Emanuel stirred his tea. With only one lump of sugar to the cup, you had to make sure that it was all dissolved. He had offered to have saccharine instead when the rationing came in, but Rosie wouldn’t hear of it. “As long as there’s sugar to be had, you’ll get it in your tea, and I don’t want any arguments about it.” But it was only one lump instead of two, and he really did like two. So he stirred hard.
    â€œAugust is two months ago,” he said, “and I’ve an idea they’ve quarrelled. In fact, between you and me, Mr. Merridew as good as said so. So what am I going to do now? If it was Mr. Merridew, he might be able to find out from the War Office, but I don’t know how to set about it. You see, it’s a bit awkward asking where people are these days—there might be quite a wrong construction placed on it. And meanwhile there’s the parcel, and there’s no getting from it it’s a responsibility.”
    â€œWhy not put it in the bank?”
    â€œWell, our branch—you know they’ve been bombed, and when I put it to Mr. Merridew he said, ‘No—better keep it yourself.’ And I said, ‘But how am I to get hold of Mr. Rossiter?’ And that’s just where he turned faint and the nurse came in and bundled me off.”
    â€œWell, I should ask Miss Delia,” said Rosie Holt.
    Antony Rossiter lay in a ditch and waited for the dawn. From one point of view the darkness would be a protection, but from another it would not. To approach the town before anyone was astir was all right as long as no one really was astir. If on the other hand you were encountered, you would naturally become an object of suspicion. Better to wait till the cocks were crowing and the countryside awake and drift in with the normal early-morning tide of traffic. He had been in the ditch since midnight, and though it was dry, or what passes for dry in a ditch, he was not anxious to remain in it any longer than he could help. He had disposed of his parachute by cutting it up and poking the bits into the sides of the ditch. As soon as there was a blink in the east he could get up and stretch his legs.
    The blink was a long time coming. When at last he crawled out, he could see the country as flat as a plate. There was low cloud, and a shallow layer of fog spread out all over the fields. He began to walk through it. Sometimes it was no more than up to his knees, and sometimes it was well up over his head. Then he had to walk blind and trust to luck for his direction. The air was raw and cold, and he was stiff from his ditch.
    He walked briskly, slapping his arms across his chest. With the practical side of his mind he was thinking about his job and hoping that his Dutch was good enough to see him through, but every now and then this practical side was broken in upon by thoughts of Delia. He wondered when he would see her again, and when they could be married, and where they would live and what they would do when the war was over.
    Presently he could hear that he was coming to a road—the sound of wheels, the sound of a man calling to his horse. Mostly horse traffic round here, he supposed, now that petrol was so short—all commandeered for the occupation, or sent to Germany.
    He made for the road and trudged along it. More than one cart passed him before he signalled for a lift. He picked a large comfortable man, and was told to jump up. The cart was full of