Rachel, watching the room, was absorbed by her own thoughts; she scarcely noticed the little woman beside her. She saw Uncle John, his white hair and happy smile and large rather shapeless body, his way of laughing with his head flung back, the look of him when he was thinking, his face precisely that of a puzzled pig--simply to see him there across the room brought back to her a flood of memories. She knew that she had avoided him lately and she knew, too, that he was unhappy about her. He was unhappy, poor Uncle John, about a number of things--always behind his laughter and cheerful greetings there was the little restless distress as though Life were offering him, just now, more than he could control. Rachel looked and then turned her eyes away. "Yes," she said to Lady Darrant, "I hope it won't be very much. They say that a week or two will see the end of it." Truly, for herself, this afternoon was almost too difficult for her. She had received, that morning, a letter from Francis Breton asking her to go to tea with him in his rooms, one day within the following week. She had never been to his room; she had not met him once during the whole year. She had known, during all these last twelve months, that meeting him had nothing at all to do with the especial claim that they had upon one another. That claim had existed since that day of their first coming face to face and nothing now could ever alter it. But the next time that they met must be, for both of them, a definite landmark. She might either decide, now, once and for all, never to see him again, or grasp, quite definitely, the possible result of her going to him. The writing of this letter brought, at last, upon her the climax that she had been avoiding during the last year. Sitting there in the Beaminster camp it was difficult to act without prejudice. With the exception of Uncle John and Roddy she hated them all. After all if she were to refuse to see Francis Breton did it solve the question? Did it help her--and that was the great need of her present life--to love Roddy any better? And if she went to his rooms and saw him, would not the truth emerge from that meeting and the miserable doubts and temptations that had shadowed her since her marriage be cleared away for ever? She liked Roddy and did not love him--nothing could alter that. Breton and she belonged to a world that was hostile to this world that she was now in--nothing could alter that. Yes, she would go and see Breton. She got up, smiled at Lady Darrant and went across the room to talk to Uncle John. On this afternoon she had a great overpowering longing for someone to love her, to care for her, to pity her, to take her into their arms and whisper comfort to her. It was so long--oh! so long, since Dr. Chris and Uncle John had done that. And yet--the irony of it--there was Roddy eager to do it all: and from him, the fates had decreed that it should mean nothing to her.