Winnie had an honest desire to be just, nay, to be kind, to reciprocate a friendliness obviously extended towards her, and extended in spite of a rooted disapproval. But those limits of endurance had been reached again. She had, indeed, had enough of the Ledstones; not even her husband could have suffered more strongly from the feeling. She made an effort. "Oh, you and I part friends," she called after her visitor's retreating figure. Without turning round, Amy shook her head dolefully, and so passed out. Her mission was accomplished. Almost directly after Amy left, the servant, Dennehy's old Irish woman, came in with tea and buttered toast. She drew a chair up to the gas stove, and a little table. "Make yerself comfortable, me dear," she said. "Did he say anything to you, Mrs. O'Leary?" "Said he was going to visit his relations in the North for a bit." Then, after a pause, "Cheer up, mum. There's as good fish----!" And out the old woman shuffled. Now that was a funny thing to say! 'There's as good fish----!' But Winnie's numb brain was on another tack; she did not pursue the implications of Mrs. O'Leary's remark. Nor did the tender mood, on whose advent she had speculated when she said, 'I wonder if I shall cry, when you've gone,' arrive. Nor was she girding against the Ledstones and Woburn Square any more. Her thoughts went back to her own parting from her husband. "Anyhow, I faced Cyril--we had it out," was the refrain of her thoughts, curiously persistent, as she sat before the stove, drinking her tea and munching her toast, enjoying the warmth, really (though it seemed strange) not so much miserable as intensely combative, with no leisure to indulge in misery, with her back to the wall, and the world--the Giant--advancing against her threateningly. Because her particular little rampart had collapsed entirely, the roof was blown off her shelter, her scheme of life in ruins--a situation cheerfully countered by Mrs. O'Leary's proverbial saying, but not in reality easy to deal with. Her boat was not out fishing; it was stranded, high and dry, on a barren beach. "I did face Cyril!" Again and again it came in pride and bitter resentment. Here she was faced with a _dénoûment_ typical of a weak mind--at once sudden, violent, and cowardly. She smoked two or three cigarettes--Ledstone had taught her the habit, undreamed of in her Maxon days--and the hands of the clock moved round. Half-past six struck. It acted as a practical reminder of immediate results. She had no dinner ordered; if she had, there was nobody to eat it with. There was nobody to spend the evening with. She would have to sleep alone in the house; Mrs. O'Leary had family cares, and got home to supper and bed at nine o'clock. She need not dine, but she must spend the evening and must sleep, with no company, no protective presence, in all the house. That seemed really rather dreadful.