"Carry it right up," she said to the porter at the mansions in St. James's when she arrived there. "I've come for the night, I expect." The porter had told her that Mr. Jardine had come in. And he looked at Mrs. Talcott curiously. At the door of Gregory's flat Mrs. Talcott encountered a check. Barker, mournful and low-toned as an undertaker, informed her firmly that Mr. Jardine was seeing nobody. He fixed an astonished eye upon Mrs. Talcott's box which was being taken from the lift. "That's all right," said Mrs. Talcott. "Mr. Jardine'll see me. You tell him that Mrs. Talcott is here." She had walked past Barker into the hall and her box was placed beside her. Barker was very much disconcerted, yet he felt Mrs. Talcott to be a person of weight. He ushered her into the drawing-room. In the late sunlight it was as gay and as crisp as ever, but for the lack of flowers, and the Bouddha still sat presiding in his golden niche. "Mr. Jardine is in the smoking-room, Madam," said Barker, and, gauging still further the peculiar significance of this guest whose name he now recovered as one familiar to him on letters, he added in a low voice: "He has not used this room since Mrs. Jardine left us." "Is that so?" said Mrs. Talcott gravely. "Well, you go and bring him here right away." Mrs. Talcott stood in the centre of the room when Barker had gone and gazed at the Bouddha. And again her figure strongly suggested that of the sight-seer, unperturbed and adequate amidst strange and alien surroundings. Gregory found her before the Bouddha when he came in. If Mrs. Talcott had been in any doubt as to one of the deep intuitions that had, from the first, sustained her, Gregory's face would have reassured her. It had a look of suffocated grief; it was ravaged; it asked nothing and gave nothing; it was fixed on its one devouring preoccupation. "How do you do, Mrs. Talcott," he said. They shook hands. His voice was curiously soft. "I've come up, you see," said Mrs. Talcott. "I've come up to see you, Mr. Jardine." "Yes?" said Gregory gently. He had placed a chair for her but, when she sat down, he remained standing. He did not, it was evident, imagine her errand to be one that would require a prolonged attention from him. "Mr. Jardine," said Mrs. Talcott, "what was your idea when you first found out about Karen from the detective and asked me not to tell?" Gregory collected his thoughts, with difficulty. "I don't know that I had any idea," he answered. "I was stunned. I wanted time to think." "And you hoped it wasn't true, perhaps?" "No; I hadn't any hope. I knew it was true. Karen had said things to me that made it nothing of a surprise. But perhaps my idea was that she would be sorry for what she had done and write to me, or to you. I think I wanted to give Karen time." "Well, and then?" Mrs. Talcott asked. "If she had written?" "Well, then, I'd have gone to her." "You'd have taken her back?"