"How can I tell her?" she kept saying to herself. "And why, oh why did Florence not tell me before? And to think that _he_ is actually back, and that she must meet him after, and I that have encouraged it. There is no one--no, not one creature--I can confide in. For Florence meant something when she begged me not to trust Miss Forsyth. But--oh dear, and how my darling Imogen warned me too!--but how could Major Winchester have been so careless, if the letter he is so annoyed about really was the one sent to Imogen; and _how_ am I to tell her, and she perhaps sickening for brain fever or typhoid fever, or something?" The poor woman's brain was in a whirl, for Florence had not dared to do more than warn her vaguely. It was a relief when, about six o'clock, an orange-coloured envelope was brought in by Colman. "Can you both spend a week with me on your way home?" it said. "Welcome any day; the sooner the better." It came from an old friend, Imogen's godmother, and as there had been vague talk of the visit it was not altogether unexpected; not at least too surprising that Mrs Hume should have telegraphed. "Can I send an answer back?" asked Imogen's mother. "Yes, ma'am. I was to say the messenger is waiting. There are telegraph forms in the envelope case on the writing-table," was the maid's reply. And in another moment the answer was forthcoming--a warmly-worded acceptance, announcing the Wentworths' arrival some time the following afternoon. This settled, Mrs Wentworth, who did not often act with such promptitude and decision, relapsed into nervousness and depression. She established herself on a chair beside the door of communication with Imogen's room, longing for and yet dreading her awaking. For, strange as it may seem, the girl was really asleep, and soundly so. It was her first experience of violent emotion, and, coming on the top of the past days of tension and excitement, it had completely exhausted her. At first she had meant to lie still, and, if need were, feign sleep till time sufficient for Mrs Hume's telegram should have elapsed, but real slumber had come, saving her, not improbably, from the illness that would not have been an abnormal result of all she had gone through. But at last, half an hour or so before the dressing-gong sounded, she awoke. For a moment or two she was in a chaos of bewilderment; then by degrees, as this cleared a little, she became conscious of one overmastering impression; the latest and strongest on her brain before she fell asleep. They--she and her mother--must leave, must seek shelter somewhere, anywhere, at once. Then the remembrance of the commission she had, in her desperation, entrusted to Robin Winchester returned.