Again Amy's fixed gaze was on her companion. "Yes," she said, more than half assenting to Winnie's description of herself, yet with a doubt whether "thing" were wholly the word, whether, if "thing" were not the word, the home doctrine could be altogether right. "What about her then?" she went on. "What about----?" "Why, Mabel--Mabel Thurseley." "Oh yes! Well, I suppose she--she knows what everybody knows--she knows what often happens." "Oh, but while it's absolutely going on here! They might have waited a little at all events." "You mean that--it's happening?" Amy's figure rose erect in her chair again. "Try and see if you can get him to utter Mabel's name to you!" Winnie was struck with the suggestion. Her interest in her visitor suddenly became less derivative, more personal. She looked at Amy's passably well-favoured features and robust physique. There was really nothing about her to suggest eccentric ideas. "Oh, do please sit down! Don't stand there as if you were turned to stone!" Amy's appeal was almost a wail. The slim figure was so motionless; it seemed arrested in its very life. "I like you. It's very kind of you. I--I'm trying to think.... I can't take your word for it, you know. I love him--I trust him." Amy fidgeted again uncomfortably. "Daddy and mother are always at him. They think it--it will be redemption for him, you see." "Yes, I suppose they do--redemption!" Suddenly she moved, taking two steps nearer to Amy, so that she stood almost over her. "And you think----?" Amy looked up at her, with tears in her eyes. "Oh, I don't know! What am I to think? Why did you do it? Why did you make everything impossible either way? Somebody must be miserable now!" "Somebody was miserable before--I was. And I've been happy for a bit. That's something. It seems to me only one person need be miserable even now. Why is that worse?" The clock struck six. Amy started to her feet in alarm. "He might come back a little sooner than usual--we finish tea about half-past five. By the Tube----" She was nervously buttoning her jacket. "If he caught me!" she murmured. "Caught you here?" "Oh, how can I go against them? I'm not married--I have to live there." Winnie stretched out her thin arms. "Would you be with me if you could? Would you, Amy? I had such a bad time of it! And he was mine first, you know." Amy drew back ever so little. "Don't!" she gasped. "I really must go, Mrs.--oh, I really must go!" "Yes, you must go. He might come back soon now. Shall we ever meet again, I wonder?" "Oh, why did you?" "It's not what I did. It's what you think about it." "Because you seem to me wonderful. You're--you're so much above him, you know." "That doesn't help, even if it's true. I should hate to believe it." "Good-bye. You won't let anybody know I came? Oh, not Godfrey?" "You may trust me--and Mr. Purnett too, I think." "Oh yes; I can trust him. Good-bye!"