"Well, go if you feel up to it," said Brackenbury in what I thought was an off-hand manner to adopt to his sister. "Or send Will, if anybody can find what's happened to him. So long as they've _some_ one to chaperon them, they're all right." I would have stayed if Will could have stayed with me. I would have gone if that had been the only means of keeping by his side. Do you know, I had the feeling that in the length and breadth of that house he was the only one who cared whether I was well or ill, whether I lived or died ... almost... "I'm not sure that I _care_ to leave my mother while she's like this," said my boy rather timidly, when he was fetched in to join the council. It is unfashionable, I believe, for the modern son to shew his mother any overt tenderness... "Well, some one's got to go," said Brackenbury with unnecessary impatience. "It's all up, if you leave those two without any one to keep them in countenance." "We will both go," I said. When the car was ordered, we went into the hall and waited... After about twenty minutes Brackenbury rang to find out the reason for the delay. The servant came back to say that part of what I think is called the magneto was missing. I chose my word carefully: not "injured" or "worn-out," but "missing"--as though some one had invaded the garage and removed the requisite part... Brackenbury seemed to lose his head altogether. "It's ten o'clock," he roared. "If you don't get to Hugely by mid-night, can't you see that you'll be too late to stop a scandal? If you _want_ to stay the divorce, say so at once, say that you're scheming to tie up Spenworth in your own interests; and, by God, if it comes off, _I_'ll say it until every decent man and woman will walk out of a room when any of your gang come into it... Phyllida," he shouted. "Order your car! Will can drive it..." "Aren't you afraid he may lose his way?," asked Phyllida. I don't attempt to reproduce her voice... It was silky ... oh, and wicked! I _tell_ myself not to mind, I try to remember that she was overwrought and that her father was a criminal not to insist on her going away. Phyllida was deliberately charging us with a conspiracy to interrupt the divorce proceedings so that in time--goodness me, when Arthur and I are dead and buried!--our boy Will might succeed. Cheniston is a noble seat; the Spenworth title is old and was once honoured; but neither for my husband nor my son do I want them--at that cost. I said nothing... I believe I murmured to myself: "You wicked child"; but, literally, I couldn't speak. I couldn't see ... or hear. Brackenbury was making furious arrangements. As in a dream I saw Ruth being wrapped in a fur-coat... A car came to the door and drove away... I asked my boy to ascertain which was my room and to lend me the support of his arm up the stairs... Ruth telegraphed next day from Rugely--just two words--"_All well_." ...