Compared with the commonplace sights of the front streets, this was like a peep into the wonder-world. The sky was turning from yellow to violet under the enchantment of sunset, and all the air seemed to be full of a deep sigh. Wicked faces began to peer from the bricks of the houses, and the chimneys, if they were looked at long enough, really moved and nodded to each other as if they were communicating secrets overhead. Even the clothes-props down below felt the influence, and came to life, and the clothes on the lines changed into ghostly people whispering to and nudging one another as the darkness gave them courage. It was impossible to believe that this was London, that the Underground Railway ran beneath, and that the hospital stood not far off. It was easier to think that you had strayed into the heart of some haunted town, thousands of years ago, wherein dwelt a mystic folk, worshipping strange gods, and going about the streets of their doomed city, noiseless and hushed. The sudden stopping of wheels outside, and the instant clamour of a bell, broke Alistair’s trance. With the dazed feeling of a man just recalled from sleep he stumbled down the stairs, and opened the front-door to Molly. She marched in, dressed in her most extravagant clothes, with a hat, which Alistair could not remember seeing before, on her head, and a more than usually profuse display of jewels on her arms and hands. Her cheeks were bright with rouge and powder, and there was a hard, metallic glint in her eyes which warned him that she had been drinking. “Well, old boy, how did you get on?” she burst out, in a voice tainted with huskiness. “I had a row with the servants while you were away, and sacked the whole lot of them, and a good thing too. Jump into my carriage, and we’ll go off and have a nice little dinner at the Savoy or wherever you like, and a box at the theatre after. Cheer up!” While she was rattling on with an evident anxiety not to give him time to think, Alistair was glancing from her painted face to her jewelled fingers, and from the new hat to the coupé which had brought her to the house. “Come in here,” he said, in a quiet tone of authority, at the same time closing the front-door. He led the way into the drawing-room, Molly following with reluctant steps, and a look of defiance. “Well, what is it? What do you want to say now?” she demanded. “Where have you come from?” asked Alistair. “Where have I come from? What business is that of yours? I can go where I like, can’t I? I’ve been shopping, if you want to know.” “Where did you get the money?” “Never mind! What money? Can’t I have a little money of my own? I’ve been giving you money lately.” “I know you have. And I’m very sorry I let you. But that was money you got on your jewels, and I gave you some of them myself. You have been getting some more since I went away, and I want to know where you got it.” “Suppose I borrowed it; what’s that to you?” “Who lent it to you?”