Scrope's Egeria stood in the middle of the room waiting for Scrope's wife. She was leaning forward in a curious attitude, as if she were listening, and the lemon-coloured shade of the lamp standing on the table threw a strange gleam on her lavender silk gown, fashioned, as were ever the clothes worn by Joan Panfillen, with a certain austere simplicity and disregard of passing fashion. Althea tapped at the window, and the woman who had sent for her turned round, and, stepping forward, opened the window wide. "Come in!" she cried. "Come in, Althea--how strange that you had to knock! I've been waiting for you so long." "I came as quickly as I could--I don't think I can have been five minutes." Althea stepped through the window, bringing with her a blast of cold, damp air. She looked questioningly at Mrs. Panfillen. She felt, she hardly knew why, trapped. The other's look of anxious, excited scrutiny disturbed her. Mrs. Panfillen's fair face, usually pale, was flushed. So had she reddened, suddenly, when Althea had come to tell her of her engagement to Perceval Scrope. So had she looked when standing on the doorstep as Althea and Perceval started for their honeymoon, just after there had taken place a strange little scene--for Scrope, following the example of Thomas Panfillen, who had insisted on what he called saluting the bride, had taken Panfillen's wife into his arms and kissed her. "Althea"--Joan took the younger woman's hand in hers and held it, closely, as she spoke, "don't be frightened,--but Perceval is here, ill,--and I've sent for you to take him home." "Ill?" A look of dismay came over Althea's face. "I hope he's not too ill to speak to-night--that would be dreadful--he'd be terribly upset, terribly disappointed!" Even as she spoke she knew she was using words which to the other would seem exaggerated, a little childish. "I'm sure he'd rather you took him home, I'm sure he'd rather not be found----" Mrs. Panfillen hesitated a moment, and again she said the words "'ill', 'here'," and for the first time Althea saw that there was a look of great pain and strain on Joan's worn, sensitive face. "Of course not!" said the young wife quickly. "Of course he mustn't be ill here; he must come home, at once." Althea's pride was protesting hotly against her husband's stopping a moment in a house where he was not wanted--pride and a certain resentment warring together in her heart. How strange London people were! This woman whom folk--the old provincial word rose to her lips--whom folk whispered was over-fond of Perceval--why, no sooner was he ill than her one thought was how to get rid of him quietly and quickly! Mrs. Panfillen, looking at her, watching with agonised intensity the slow workings of Althea's mind, saw quite clearly what Perceval's wife was feeling, saw it with a bitter sense of what a few moments ago she would have thought inconceivable she could ever feel again--amusement.