assured me she had never been anything but a Y. worker, and that she had never seen me before to her knowledge.

[Pg xviii]

I was convinced that she remembered me perfectly, for all her denials, and looked her up only to find that no one answering to her description was either on the Y. books or on the Salvation Army’s. The only surmise possible is that she was in disguise for some reason. With apologies for troubling you with this trifling information, I am

 Sincerely,

S—— B——.

The last letter was even more unsatisfactory, and came from a clerk in the Grande Hotel du Nord. Translated, it runs as follows:

CONTENTS

[Pg xix]

Madame,

I have seen your notice in the papers about[Pg xix] the woman very fair-haired and petite, who disappeared from our hotel during the disaster of Good Friday night. She had arrived that evening. I remember thinking it was very late for a pretty woman to come alone, but as she was tired and her arm was in a sling, I admitted her without looking at her papers, although I took them to my room to go over in the morning. They were destroyed in the fire caused by the bomb, so I can give you no more information.

[Pg xix]

I have, madame, the honor, etc., etc.

 Joseph M——.

Since surely somewhere in this great world there is a man or woman to whom these letters will have poignant meaning, I have come to the conclusion that it will be well, on the whole, to publish extracts from them, hoping they will be claimed. I am doing so, leaving them much as they were written, with some excisions and few changes, but yet so no one except those concerned could possibly recognize them.

If by some miracle the little lady, who perhaps was Polly herself, and who gave me her[Pg xx] old love letters, still lives, I believe she will want them. If she perished on that Good Friday night, or if for reasons of her own, she wishes to remain silent, I hope to be forgiven for publishing them but I feel that I have done only what was my duty.

[Pg xx]

Isabel Anderson.

PART I THE 

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