Laura, so much Katty believed herself to have discovered, was now happy, in her cold, unemotional way, in the possession of a man's ardent devotion, while she, Katty, who had asked so comparatively little of life, had been deprived of the one human being who could, and perhaps in time would, have given her all she wanted. Poor Godfrey Pavely! No one ever spoke of him now, in that neighbourhood where once he had counted for so much. Already it was as if he had never been. But to Katty Winslow he was still an insistent, dominating presence. Often she brooded over his untimely death, and sometimes she upbraided herself for not having made some sort of effort to solve the mystery. The reward was still in being, but one day, lately, when she had made some allusion to it in Laura's presence, Laura, reddening, had observed that she was thinking of withdrawing it. "Lord St. Amant and the Scotland Yard people never approved of it," she said, "and as you know, Katty, it has led to nothing." Early in October, Laura, Oliver and Alice, passing by Rosedean one day, turned in through the gate. "Why shouldn't we go in and ask Katty to come to tea?" It was Laura's suggestion. Somehow she was sorry for Katty--increasingly sorry. Yet she could not help feeling glad when Harber coldly informed her that Mrs. Winslow had left home, and would not be back for ten days. * * * * * At the very time that happy little group of people was at her door, Katty herself was standing in a queue of people waiting to take her ticket at York station. Though Mrs. Winslow would have been honestly surprised had any one told her she was sentimental, she had actually come down by an earlier train than was necessary in order that she might retrace the ways that she and her friend had trodden together a year ago in January. She had first gone to the Minster, moving swiftly along the paved streets where she had walked and talked slowly, pleasantly, with the dead man. Then she had wandered off to the picturesque thoroughfare lined with curiosity shops. How kind, how generous Godfrey had been to her just here! Every time she looked up in her pretty little drawing-room at Rosedean, his gift met her eye. While she was engaged on this strange, painful pilgrimage, there welled up in Katty's heart a flood of agonised regret and resentment. She told herself bitterly that Godfrey's death had aged her--taken the spring out of her. Small wonder indeed that in these last few weeks she should have come to hate Laura with a steady, burning flame of hate.... So it was that Katty Winslow was in a queer mental and physical state when she returned to the big railway station to complete her journey. She did not feel at all in the mood to face the gay little houseparty where she was sure of an uproarious, as well as of an affectionate, welcome.