The Admiral was much troubled. A week had elapsed since Madame fainted, and although the mysterious process of unhooking her, together with a dash of water on her face, and the salts, had brought her to very rapidly, a cloud had seemed to hang over the Walk since that moment. It was certainly not itself, and it had grown less like itself as the days passed. Madame was apparently quite well, yet she stayed within doors, or, if she came out, her face was more than usually sad, and she walked with slow steps, like one who bears a heavy burden of sorrow. She was not seen in church on Sunday. Marjolaine was there, bright and happy. She had assured everybody there was nothing really serious the matter with her mother: only a headache. On Monday morning Marjolaine was still her usual merry self, but as the morning wore into the afternoon and the afternoon into the evening she grew restless. The Admiral noticed that she kept on going to the river-bank and looking up and down stream as if she were expecting someone. On Tuesday she was out very early, still apparently watching. On Wednesday she grew silent, and refused to have her usual singing-lesson on the plea that she was not feeling very well. On Thursday she turned unnaturally gay, but there was a hard note in her laughter, and Sir Peter had caught her sobbing in the Gazebo. Fortunately she had not noticed him, and he was able to retire without disturbing her. But he himself was greatly disturbed. The more so as he had seen that Madame was watching her daughter intently, and that every change in Marjolaine was reflected on the elder lady’s face. Friday found Marjolaine pale and dejected; and here was midday on Saturday, and she had not yet appeared! Could she be sickening for a serious illness? Sir Peter was nervous and anxious. He was also put out by the fact that although Jack Sayle had promised as he hurriedly rowed away, that he would come to see him on the Monday, the whole week had passed without a sign of the young lieutenant, and without any word of explanation. But the entire Walk was nervous and anxious. It had grown so accustomed to Marjolaine’s songs and merry laughter, that as she grew silent and grave, the Walk grew silent and grave with her. Mrs. Poskett’s temper underwent a change for the worse, and she and Ruth Pennymint very nearly had words over a milk-can which the dairy-man had carelessly hung on the wrong railing. Ruth’s ill-humour was aggravated by the behaviour of Barbara and Basil. They went about sighing and turning up the whites of their eyes; Barbara shut herself up two and three hours every day with the parrot, and Basil ground at the slow movement of the Kreutzer Sonata, repeating one particularly heart-rending passage so persistently that Ruth wanted to scream.