North Devon was hateful to cousin Bella. She hated the wastes of sand and sea, the discomforts of the bungalow, the slow hours uncertainly measured by meal-times that seemed as if they would never come. Her brain was wild with unsatisfied curiosity. Yet she had tact in the presence of real suffering. She had forborne to question Audrey about the past, and their present life was not fruitful in topics. She did nothing but wonder. "I wonder when it will be tea-time? I wonder if there was anything between Audrey and her cousin? I wonder which of those three gentlemen it was? I wonder when it will be tea-time?" That was the monotonous rondo of her thoughts to which the sea kept time. "Audrey, my dear, come in! I think it must be lunch-time," she wailed. But no answer came from the hollow. She meekly turned, and picked her way back again across the sand-hills. Audrey lay hidden till the forlorn little figure was out of sight; then she got up and looked around her. She shuddered. Her life was as bleak as the bleak landscape smitten by the salt wind--cold and grey and formless as the winter sea. What was that black silhouette on the sands? She strained her eyes to see. Another figure was making its way towards her from the bungalow. When it came near she recognised the unofficial rustic who brought telegrams from the nearest post-town. She waited. The man approached her with an inane smile on his face. "Teleegram vur yü, Mizz," he drawled. She tore open the cover, and read: "Come at once. Vincent dying. Wire what train you come by.--Katherine." She crumpled the paper in her clenched hand. The landscape was blotted out; she saw nothing but the envelope lying at her feet, a dull orange patch against the greyish sand. "Any awnzur, Mizz?" "No." She shut her eyes and tried to realise it. "Yes--yes, there is! Wait--I must look out my trains first." She made out that by driving to Barnstaple, and catching the two-o'clock train, she would reach Waterloo about eight. She sent the man back with a telegram saying that she would be in Devon Street by nine that evening at the latest. It was past one then, and she had yet to pack. It was hopeless--she could never catch that train. It did not matter; there was another to Paddington an hour later: it was a slow train, but she would be with Vincent by eleven. But she was faint, and had to have some luncheon before she could do anything; and there was so much to do. She flew hither and thither, trying to collect her clothes and her thoughts. Her grey cloak and her bearskins--she would want them, it would be cold in the train. And her best hat--where was her best hat? Cousin Bella had hidden her best hat. Ah! she _must_ think, or everything would go wrong. What was it all about? Vincent dying--dying? Audrey knew little about dying, except that it was a habit people had of plunging you suddenly into mourning when you had just ordered a new dress. Death was another of those things she could not understand.