"Certainly. Certainly. She wouldn't expect it, my dear man. As a matter of fact she and Mrs Beverley are off in town for the day,-- frock-hunting, I believe. They're always at it. Ripping little woman, Mrs Beverley! lots of fun, but plenty of common sense tucked away inside. Been a regular godsend to Cassandra..." "Lady Cassandra is quite well?" "Humph!" the Squire protruded his under lip. "So, so. Had a bit of a breakdown in autumn. We had a hard time of it, after you left. My old Mater had a stroke, and we were down in Devonshire looking after her for a couple of months. She got on like a house on fire: helpless, you know--couldn't stir out of bed, but keen as a needle, took in all that was going on. Cassandra nursed her." The Squire flicked the ash from his cigarette with a ruminating air. "Rum things, women! Hated each other like poison, those two. That's to say the Mater hated Cass; jealous, because she was my wife. Cass didn't hate her... too much trouble. She was simply bored. She's given to being bored; you know that. She's bored with your Teresa. Grizel's the passion nowadays. Grizel is always perfect. But she was good to the old Mater. Nursed her like a brick, and the old Mater lay there by the hour staring at Cass. The last words she spoke to me,--did I tell you she had a third stroke, and died suddenly, just as we were coming home?--her last words were about Cass. Thought she needed looking after, ... cheering up.--It was a great comfort to me, Peignton, that the old Mater and Cass were on good terms at the last!" "I am quite sure it was," Dane said sincerely. He was trying to banish a picture that rose before him, of the paralysed old woman with the dead body, and the live eyes that watched, hour after hour, the beautiful tragic face of her son's wife. How much had the old Mater seen? How much had she divined? The next morning Dane stood by Teresa's side in the graveyard of the old church, and drove back to the Cottage by her side. In the afternoon he paid a second visit, and found the Vicar and his wife drinking tea with the mourners. The two girls were silent and self-contained, but the emotions of the day had had an exciting effect on Mrs Mallison's nerves, with the gruesome result that she appeared to be in the highest of spirits. Her voluble tongue discussed times past, present, and to come, and very pointedly she gave her hearers to understand that no condolences were necessary on the score of poverty.