Elsie, who at home had, as a matter of course, surreptitiously disobeyed every order or prohibition of her mother’s that ran counter to her own wishes, knew already that she would not disobey her husband. She was afraid of him. On the rare occasions when she saw any of her own family, Elsie always made a great display of her own grandeur and independence. She was really proud of her little suburban villa, her white-and-gold china, fumed oak “suite” of drawing-room furniture, “ruby” glasses and plated cake basket. She was also proud of being Mrs. Williams, and of wearing a wedding-ring. Geraldine came to see her once or twice, and then declared herself too busy at the office to take the long tram journey, and as Elsie hardly ever went to Hillbourne Terrace, they seldom met. But Irene Tidmarsh came often to see Elsie. She came in the daytime, when Williams was at the office, and very often she and Elsie went to the cinema together in the afternoon. Irene seemed able to get free time whenever she liked, and she explained this to Elsie by telling her that the superintendent at the works was a great friend of hers. Elsie perfectly understood what this meant, and realised presently that Irene was never available on Saturdays and Sundays. The war went on, and Mr. Williams made more and more money, and was fairly generous to Elsie, although he never gave her an independent income, but only occasional presents of cash, and instructions that all her bills should be sent in to him. He did not rescind his command that she should not attempt any war work, although, as the months lengthened into years, it seemed fairly certain that there was to be no family to give Elsie occupation at home. At twenty-five, Elsie Williams, from sheer boredom, had lost a great deal of the vitality that had characterised Elsie Palmer, and with it a certain amount of her remarkable animal magnetism. She was still attractive to men, but her own susceptibilities had become strangely blunted and no casual promiscuity would now have power to stir her. She was aware that life had become uninteresting to her, and accepted the fact with dull, bewildered, entirely unanalytical resentment. “I s’pose I’m growing middle-aged,” she said to Irene, giggling without conviction. One day, more than a year after the Armistice in November 1918, Irene Tidmarsh came to Elsie full of excitement. She had heard of a wonderful crystal-gazer, and wanted to visit her with Elsie. Elsie was quite as much excited as Irene. “I’d better take off my wedding-ring,” she said importantly. “They say they’ll get hold of any clue, don’t they?” “This woman isn’t like that,” Irene declared. “She’s what they call a psychic, really she is. This girl that told me about her, she said it quite frightened her, the things the woman knew. All sorts of things about her past, too.”