Roddy was sitting alone at breakfast and she saw at once that he was uneasy. He seemed to avoid her eyes and he coloured as she came towards him. "Mornin', Miss Rand," he said, "Rachel's not comin' down. Bit of headache--rotten night." "I didn't have a very good night either. That storm made me sleep badly." "Yes, wasn't it a corker? It's all right to-day though." She looked through the wide high windows and saw out over a country painted as in a delicate water-colour--The softest green and dark brown lay beneath a pale blue sky, very still, very gentle. Tiny white puffs of cloud were blown, like soap bubbles across the sun, so that bright gleams floated and passed and flashed again. She drew a deep breath--"Nothing terrifying in such a day as this." "Yes, it's beautiful--beautiful! I'm off for the day," Roddy said, "ridin'----" She helped herself to some breakfast and sat down. Roddy said, "Well, no one would ever believe _you'd_ had a bad night, Miss Rand."--"You're fresh as a pin." "Thank you," she said, laughing. "But, all the same, I _did_ sleep badly." "I'm not feeling princely myself," he confessed, "that's why I'm goin' off for a ride, nothin' like a ride to take you out of yourself. Don't you ever feel, Miss Rand, that you want to get right away from yourself and be someone else?" She looked at him. Roddy was in real trouble. His very physical strength showed the more clearly that he was unhappy. His fingers moved restlessly, his eyes were never still. She looked at her letters. There was one from Lady Adela. "Oh! I'm sorry--I'm afraid I shall have to go back almost immediately--The Duchess is much less well--They're worried about her." "The Duchess!" Roddy started up and then sat down again. "I'm sorry--I was thinking about her only yesterday. What's the matter?" "Lady Adela doesn't say, but she asks about you--the Duchess, I mean. Got it into her head, Lady Adela says, that you're not well or something." "I'll write to her." Roddy spoke slowly as though to himself--"I've not treated her very well lately and she's always been such a brick to me." He left his breakfast, walked backwards and forwards once or twice--"Always been such a brick to me, the old lady has," he repeated. Lady Adela really did want Lizzie to return. This horrid war was getting on her nerves, the house was all in disorder and nobody seemed either well or happy. "Somebody really does want me," thought Lizzie with a certain grim satisfaction. But she was terribly restless that morning. She could settle down to nothing and ended by walking up and down the garden paths, watching the pale winter light cross the Downs in sweeping shadow, seeing the bare branches, all black and sharp against the blue distance. How she loved life and how, at every turn, life was thrust from her! For that other woman, there inside the house, two men were ready, eager to die--for herself, in all the world, no one cared.