She had dined firstly with Sir Samuel and another couple at one of the big restaurants. After that she had gone to the play, and lastly she had gone back to supper at the house of a certain woman who affected a great regard for her, and there she had played cards with her usual disastrous luck. She had driven home alone, tired, depressed, and yet conscious of an enormous relief. For Broxbourne had spoken that night of going out of town immediately. This he had said when they had been alone, and the conversation had so tended that had he been prepared to bring forward the subject she so dreaded to hear, it would have been the easiest thing in the world for him to have done so. Indeed, Camilla had held her breath for a moment, preparing herself to meet the black moment that had haunted her in anticipation ever since she had met him so unexpectedly that evening in the railway carriage. But Sir Samuel had said nothing. Evidently he was still unaware that he had it in his power to make her suffer. "And if he does go," Camilla said to herself wearily, as she alighted at her own door and passed into the silent house, "that means that I can breathe again. Oh, I wish he would go! I am not afraid of him as I was in the old days, but I loathe him just as much. He is more hateful than ever. He was always coarse and hateful, but now he is worse. Nothing can be beautiful in life when such a man is close to one." She smiled faintly. "If Agnes Brenton could hear me," she said to herself, "I suppose she would think that I was a little madder than usual, since I fought her the other day when she was trying to say this very same thing about Sammy. But, then, I should be sorry to be obliged to let Agnes understand why I seem to encourage this man. How Ned hated him! To-night when we were at supper all that Ned used to say about Sammy came back to me with a rush.... And to think that I have made it possible for such a brute to have the whip hand over me! Oh, sometimes I think it is a good thing to die even as Ned died! There can at least be no chance of being a miserable fool when one is in one's little grave." Some letters were lying for her on the table. She gathered them together without looking at them, turned out the light, and mounted the stairs quietly. It seemed an incongruous thing for this woman, so exquisitely arrayed, to be doing little menial duties. But Camilla was very thoughtful in lots of things. She never permitted any one of the maids to sit up for her. Late as it was, a bright fire was still burning in the grate, and her room was warm and cosy. She sat down in the big easy-chair in front of the fire. Her thoughts still hovered about Broxbourne. When she was tired, and there was no excitement, she was ripe for remorse, for self-recrimination. And now it seemed to her overstrained nerves that she was tainted with the very coarseness, the vulgarity of the man she hated so much.