It was the first time she had used an endearing expression to him since he had brought her home. He had experienced a great lift of spirit when he had seen her waiting for him on the platform, looking once again like her old self, and she had kissed him and taken his arm as they went out to the car. But now his heart sank like lead. "Yes, I saw her," he said shortly. That was all. Beatrix gradually withdrew herself from her warm contact with him, and spoke of surface matters in the lifeless voice she now habitually used towards him. It was plain to him that Lady Grafton had given her to understand that she was going to do something to help her. He had not understood that there had been a correspondence between them. He complained of it to Caroline. "I suppose she wrote and asked Aunt Mary to see me," he said. "I don't like it at all. Hasn't she got any love for me left? She was just like she always has been for a few minutes, while she thought something might have happened. But it wasn't really for me. It's all that fellow,--and he doesn't want her any more." Caroline spoke to Beatrix. "You're making Dad awfully unhappy," she said. "Well, he's making me awfully unhappy," said Beatrix, without waiting for anything further. "He wants me to love him, and of course I do. But I simply can't make a fuss of him, when he's behaving so unfairly. Everybody sympathises with me, except him. And nobody can see any reason for his sending Rene away, as he did." It was true that most people who knew about it did sympathise with Beatrix. She received letters, and wrote letters. For the first time in the history of the Grafton family letters that arrived were not common property. No one asked Beatrix whom hers were from, if they came at breakfast-time, nor did she volunteer the information, though sometimes she showed them to Caroline afterwards. The neighbours knew the story. It annoyed Grafton when he first realised that it was a matter of common talk. The information came to him from Lady Mansergh, of all people in the world.