And soon, to Mr. Blatchley's yet greater delight, people did begin to care. They cared so much, in fact, that they all read the book in order to find out. And nobody knew even then. It was, however, something to discuss at boring dinner-parties; so every one was pleased. Every one but Helena. Reading the book afresh, she was astounded, terrified, to see how near it was to life. She had thought it all altered beyond recognition: fiction merely based on fact. But now she realised that all the parts of it which mattered--Zoë's ambitions, her husband's repression--were true, truer than she ever knew indeed: whilst all the variations--names, place, ages, children, work--made no real difference at all. In all life it is the soul alone that matters, for there lies happiness and all those others are mere accidents. And the soul of Zoë was the soul of Helena; the life of Helena, the life of Zoë. Reading her book, she realised for the first time her life. Daily the thing became more of a nightmare. Hubert, of course, noticed nothing: but Geoffrey Alison grew weary of her constant admonitions as to silence. "Oh, for Heaven's sake, Zoë," he cried at last (for he was getting almost husbandly in his remarks, encouraged by their common secret), "do try and get rid of the idea that 'all is discovered' and I'm a silly ass or else a beastly cad!" "It isn't that," she answered with a gloomy petulance; "but something might easily happen and I simply don't know how I should face Hubert." "Hubert? Why, I expect he would be jolly proud of you." "Proud?" she repeated bitterly; "when he has been so splendid to me always, and here I am making him out a selfish brute who sacrifices his wife's happiness to his career and me a poor little bullied creature who goes upstairs and cries. He'd never believe that it was all exaggerated--and nor, of course, would anybody else. Proud, indeed? I do like that!" Indeed, when she thought of what an awful thing she had done, Helena very often could have gone upstairs like flabby Zoë (_née_ Virginia) and wept. Geoffrey Alison at length got thoroughly impatient with her. _He_ was enjoying it all hugely and he failed to see why she should not enjoy it too. Every day he opened his paper eagerly to see what new scheme the resourceful Blatchley had devised to spur a public interest which as yet showed no signs of flagging.