Of course it was not Joan herself; the thought that Joan, delicate, fragile as she was, would come out into the cold, foggy air was unthinkable; scarcely less strange was it to see standing there, cloakless and hatless, Joan's maid, a tall, gaunt, grey-haired woman named Bolt, who in the long ago had been nurse to the Panfillens' dead child. Scrope had told Althea the story of the brief tragedy very early in his acquaintance with her; he had spoken with strong feeling, and that although the child had been born, had lived, and had died before he himself had known Joan. In the days when she had been Mrs. Panfillen's guest, that is before her marriage, Althea had known the maid well, known and liked her grim honesty of manner, but since Althea's marriage to Perceval Scrope there had come a change over Bolt's manner. She also had made Althea feel that she was an interloper, and now the sight of the woman standing waiting in the cold mist disturbed her. Bolt looked as if she had been there a very long time, and yet Althea had hurried; she was even a little breathless. As she touched the gate, she saw that it swung loosely. Everything had been done to make her coming easy; how urgent must be Joan's need of her! Althea became oppressed with a vague fear. She looked at the maid questioningly. "Is Mrs. Panfillen ill?" she asked. The other shook her head. "There's nothing ailing Mrs. Panfillen," she said in a low voice. Together, quite silently, they traversed the flagged path, and then Bolt did a curious thing. She preceded her mistress's visitor up the iron steps leading to the boudoir window, and leaving her there, on the little balcony, went down again into the garden, and once more took up her station near the gate as if mounting guard. The long French window giving access to the boudoir was closed, and in the moment that elapsed before it was opened from within Althea Scrope took unconscious note of the room she knew so well, and of everything in it, including the figure of the woman she had come to see. It was a panelled octagon, the panels painted a pale Wedgwood blue, while just below the ceiling concave medallions were embossed with flower garlands and amorini. A curious change had been made since Althea had last seen the room. An old six-leaved screen, of gold so faded as to have become almost silver in tint, which had masked the door, now stood exactly opposite the window behind which Althea was standing. It concealed the straight Empire sofa which, as Mr. Panfillen was fond of telling his wife's friends, on the very rare occasions when he found himself in this room with one of them, had formerly stood in the Empress Josephine's boudoir at Malmaison; and, owing to the way it was now placed, the old screen formed a delicate and charming background to Mrs. Panfillen's figure.