Her cheeks were white and sunken, and swollen with much crying. She was pitifully thin, and her nervous hands strayed constantly about her face. Her pretty hair, generally so carefully waved and tended, was screwed into an untidy knot at the back of her head. She had evidently not troubled to dress all day, for she wore a bedroom wrapper, whose pink ribbons she had forgotten to tie and arrange. “My dear child,” declared Anne, “you must give me some tea. I’m dying for it, and I shall be speechless till I get it.” “Oh! I’m so sorry. I make it myself generally. I--forgot it this afternoon.” Anne sat down in an armchair near the fire, and purposely allowed her to put on the kettle, and make all the preparations alone. A glance at the room, a fairly large one, from which a bedroom opened, showed that her friend had probably done nothing but cry over the fire for several days. It was dusty, and littered with papers, books, working materials. It looked untidy, and uncared for. There were dead flowers in the vases, and the curtains half drawn, obscured the already dying light of a dull day. When the kettle began to boil, she rose, and gently pushed Madge into a chair. She made the tea herself, while in a sort of stupor of wretchedness, Mrs. Dakin watched the movements of her white fingers. “Now drink that, my child,” she said, putting the cup and saucer into her hand. “Have you had any lunch?” Madge shook her head. “Then you must eat a plateful of these excellent biscuits, and you must begin at once.” She proceeded to drink her own tea, talking about her journey, and the slowness of the trains, till watching the face opposite to her she saw a trace of colour in the cheeks. “And now what is it, my dear?” she asked very gently, as Mrs. Dakin pushed the cup away from her. For answer, Madge burst into a flood of hopeless tears. Anne leant forward and took her hand. “It’s François Fontenelle, isn’t it?” she inquired. Mrs. Dakin raised her head, her lips parted like a baby’s. “How did you guess?” she whispered. “Because I’ve known him for a great many years--very well.” There was the faintest trace of bitterness in Anne’s tone. The sight of the miserable bowed figure had revived some of her resentment. With a quick movement, Madge left her chair, and knelt beside her, hiding her face, with a childish gesture, while Anne’s arm went round her as tenderly as a mother’s. “I’m going to tell you everything,” she began in a half-choked voice. “I’ve been so wicked, Miss Page, that I--I can’t believe it. Every now and then I think it’s a dream.” She shivered in Anne’s grasp, and sobbed a moment.