O well, she would see. She would begin at the Slade, anyway, and make up her mind gradually. “But of course,” she repeated, “Paris is the place. Sooner or later I must be there. I can hear it calling all the while.” Having said those words, Rose left the window where she had been standing and walked into the garden, whither no doubt she expected me to follow her. I was about to do so when there was a knock at the door and Suzanne entered, with a curious excited flush on her face. She stood there a moment, as though trying to speak, and then, stepping aside, made room for some one in a black dress and veil, and was gone. “Dombeen!” cried the stranger, and buried her thin, tired face on my shoulder. Of what I said I have no memory. I can remember only stroking her head and hushing her like a child. “Don’t cry, don’t cry,” I may have murmured; but it was foolish, for tears were her best friends. * * * * * “Rose?” she asked at last. “Is she here?” I nodded. “If only I could see her without her seeing me!” “Wait a moment,” I said, and went to the garden to look for Rose, but she had disappeared. I returned to her mother and began to be practical. She had come in a car, and the first thing to do was to take her bag out and send it back. Then she consented to eat something, and while it was being prepared I had the story. Ronnie and she had been on their way back to England. He had wanted to see his mother again, and his father’s executors too. But at Marseilles Ronnie had died. It was where her father had died thirty-six years before—how strange a coincidence! Ronnie’s death followed up a chill, which he had taken, she feared, on a visit to Theodore’s grave. They had gone to see it directly after landing, and Ronnie now lay in the same cemetery, close by. Was not that remarkable? Since then she had been travelling steadily towards her daughter and me. No one knew of her presence in England but Ronnie’s mother, living now permanently at Torquay, who had been written to. It was at this point that Rose the other Rose—came back. I saw her across the lawn—her dress shone among the shadows—but her mother’s back being to the window, she could not see her too. Making some excuse, I slipped out. “Who is it?” Rose asked, with a startled look, and a voice almost of fear. “Is it—?” “Yes,” I said. “What has happened? Is—is he dead?” “Yes,” I said. She gave a little wailing cry and was gone. “Rose! Rose!” I called, but she did not reply. I went back to her mother and urged her to go to bed. “Not yet,” she said, adding that she would not be able to sleep. “There is so much to say, so much to know.”