“No, that was the _Empress of Peru_. The _Sylvania_ caught fire in mid-ocean—a ghastly business. There were only about fifty survivors. Both her people were drowned.” “Oh, that’s what she meant,” began Miss Howe, “that time at the Academy. We were looking at a storm-scape, and she said—‘People don’t know. It’s not like that. They wouldn’t try to paint it if they knew.’ She was quite white. Of course I never dreamed——Poor old Madala! Well, what happened?” “Oh, she reached America in what she stood up in. There was a survivors’ fund, of course, but money melts in a city when you’re strange to it.” “Couldn’t she have come back to England?” “I believe she had relations over here, but her mother had quarrelled with them all in turn. They didn’t appreciate her mother and that was the unforgivable sin for Madala. She’d have starved sooner than ask them to help her. I shouldn’t wonder if she did, too!—half starve anyway. I shouldn’t wonder if those first bare months haven’t revenged themselves at last.” “Oh, if one had known!” began the Baxter girl. “How is it that no one ever knows—or cares?” “You? You were a schoolgirl. Who had heard of her in those days? But she made friends. There was a girl, a journalist, who had been sent to interview the survivors. She seems to have helped her in the beginning. She found her a lodging—oh, can’t you see how she uses that lodging in _Eden Walls_?—and gave her occasional hack jobs, typing, and now and then proof-reading. Then she got some work taken, advertisement work, little articles on soaps and scents and face-creams that she used to illustrate herself. She was comically proud of them. She kept them all.” “I suppose in her spare time she was already working at _Eden Walls_?” “No. I asked her. And she said—‘Oh, no, I was too miserable. Oh, Anita, I _was_ miserable.’ And then she began again telling funny stories about her experiences. No, she was back in England before she began _Eden Walls_. However, she seems to have made quite a little income at last, even to have saved. And then, just when she began to see her way before her to a sort of security, then she threw it all up and came home.” “Just like Madala! But why?” “Heaven knows! Homesick, she said.” “But she hadn’t got a home!” “It was England—the English country—the south country—the Westering Hill country. She used to talk about it like—like a lover.” “Isn’t that more probable?” said Mr. Flood. “What?” “A lover.” “Carey?” “Not necessarily Carey.” Anita looked at him with a certain approval. “Ah—so you’ve thought of that, too? Now what exactly do you base it on?” He shrugged and smiled. “Delightfullest—my thoughts are thistle-down.” “But you have your theory?” She pinned him down. “I see that you too have your theory.” “Our theory.” He bowed. “You’ve got wits, Jasper.” “What are you two driving at?” Miss Howe fidgeted. “We’re evolving a theory—a theory of Madala Grey. Who lived in the south country, Anita?”