Philip drummed on the table with his fingers. "Just tell me straight, please," he said, quite quietly. "Is she dead?" Lady Ellington got up and leaned her elbow on the chimney-piece, turning away from him. "I have just come from Mr. Dundas's studio," she said. "Ah, don't interrupt me," she added, as Philip made a sudden involuntary exclamation--"let me get through with it. I left Madge with him. They have declared their love for each other." For a moment or two he did not seem to understand what she said, for he frowned as if puzzled, as if she had spoken to him in some tongue he did not know. "I beg your pardon?" he asked. Lady Ellington's own most acute feelings of rage, indignation, disappointment, were for the moment altogether subordinated by her pity for this strong man, who had suddenly been dealt this shattering, paralysing blow. If he had raged and stormed, if he had cursed Madge and threatened to shoot Evelyn, she would have felt less sorry for him. But the quietness with which he received it was more pathetic, all strength had gone from him. "What do you recommend me to do?" he asked, after a pause. "Ah, that is what I have been trying to puzzle out all the way here," she said. "Surely you can do something? There must be something to be done. You're not going to sit down under this? Don't tell me that! Go to the studio, anyhow--my motor is outside--storm, rage, threaten. Take her away. Tell him to her face what sort of a thing he has done!" Philip still exhibited the same terrible quietness, unnatural, so Lady Ellington felt it, though she was not mistaken enough to put it down to want of feeling. The feeling, on the other hand, she knew was like some close-fitting, metal frame; it was the very strength and stricture of it that prevented his moving. Then he spoke again. "And what has he done?" he asked. "He has fallen in love with her. I'm sure I don't wonder. And what has she done? She has fallen in love with him. And I don't wonder at that either." Now the minutes were passing, and if there was the slightest chance of saving the situation, it had to be taken now. In a few hours even it might easily be too late. "Just go there," she said. "I know well how this thing has shattered you, so that you can hardly feel it yet; but perhaps the sight of them together may rouse you. Perhaps the sight of you may stir in Madge some sense of her monstrous behaviour. I would sooner she had died on her very wedding-day than that she should have done this. It is indecent. It is, perhaps, too, only a passing fancy, she----"