She began setting down the fragments of the "Dream-Play" that had come to her: then the outlines. She saw very clearly and precisely how it would have to be. She was intensely happy. * * * * * She was still thinking of it as she went across the Green to the post office, instead of wondering why the postmistress had sent for her, and why Miss Horn waited for her by the house door at the side, or why she looked at her like that, with a sort of yearning pity and fear. She followed her into the parlour behind the post office. Suddenly she was awake to the existence of this parlour and its yellow cane-bottomed chairs and round table with the maroon cloth and the white alabaster lamp that smelt. The orange envelope lay on the maroon cloth. Miss Horn covered it with her hand. "It's for Mr. Dan," she said. "I daren't send it to the house lest your mother should get it." She gave it up with a slow, unwilling gesture. "It's bad news, Miss Mary." "_Your Brother Died This Evening_." Her heart stopped, staggered and went on again. _"Poona"_--Mark-- "_Your Brother Died This Evening_.--SYMONDS." "This evening" was yesterday. Mark had died yesterday. Her heart stopped again. She had a sudden feeling of suffocation and sickness. Her mind left off following the sprawl of the thick grey-black letters on the livid pink form. It woke again to the extraordinary existence of Miss Horn's parlour. It went back to Mark, slowly, by the way it had come, by the smell of the lamp, by the orange envelope on the maroon cloth. Mark. And something else. Mamma--Mamma. She would have to know. Miss Horn still faced her, supporting herself by her spread hands pressed down on to the table. Her eyes had a look of gentle, helpless interrogation, as if she said, "What are you going to do about it?" She did all the necessary things; asked for a telegram form, filled it in: "_Send Details_, MARY OLIVIER"; and addressed it to Symonds of "E" Company. And all the time, while her hand moved over the paper, she was thinking, "I shall have to tell Mamma." III. The five windows of the house stared out at her across the Green. She avoided them by cutting through Horn's yard and round by the Back Lane into the orchard. She was afraid that her mother would see her before she had thought how she would tell her that Mark was dead. She shut herself into her room to think. She couldn't think. She dragged herself from the window seat to the chair by the writing-table and from the chair to the bed. She could still feel her heart staggering and stopping. Once she thought it was going to stop altogether. She had a sudden pang of joy. "If it would stop altogether--I should go to Mark. Nothing would matter. I shouldn't have to tell Mamma that he's dead." But it always went on again. She thought of Mark now without any feeling at all except that bodily distress. Her mind was fixed in one centre of burning, lucid agony. Mamma.