"This accident to Roddy," John said slowly, as though he were thinking it all out, "has upset us all. It seems so terrible, happening to him ... much worse for him ... and then Rachel--But look here, I know you've got to go up to my mother, I won't keep you a minute--But there's a thing I've got to talk to you about--It's been on my conscience now for ages.... I've not known what to do ... at last I've made up my mind." John Beaminster had made up his mind to do something that he hated! To Christopher perhaps more than to anyone else in the world this was a revelation of the most vital, the most moving interest--He had known John for so long, seen him struggling behind screens and curtains, hugging to himself the happy knowledge that to the very end he would be able to keep life from getting at him, and now behold! Life _had_ got at him, wag clutching him by the throat. "It's about Frank"--at last he desperately brought out "I've made up my mind. I must go and see him--now, perhaps whilst mother is--is still suffering from the effects of Roddy's accident it wouldn't be wise perhaps to have him here actually in the house--But something must be done.... Adela agrees." Adela agrees! Well, if the old woman upstairs.... Christopher was moved, as he had lately been often moved, by a swift stirring of pathos. "You see, this War has upset us all so, has made one feel differently--And then he really does seem to have changed, been as quiet as anything all this time, and I hear that he's working at something sensible down in the City. I must go and see him----" Then they hadn't heard, Christopher knew, of any rumours about Rachel and Francis. Perhaps there _were_ no rumours, perhaps only in the mind of the old lady.... But then let John say a word to her about this visit to Breton and out she would come with it all. "Yes, Beaminster," Christopher said. "Of course I'm delighted. It's just what I hoped would happen, but perhaps, as your mother has been rather upset lately it would be just as well to say nothing to her...." "Quite so...." John looked away, out of the window--Poor John! Christopher held out his hand, and John took it and for a moment they stood there, then Christopher went upstairs. II Dorchester no longer asserted that her mistress was "better than she had ever been"--Since that terrible morning when Dr. Christopher had broken the news of Sir Roderick's accident Dorchester had made no pretence about anything. This was the time that must, she had always known, one day arrive, but what she had not known was that it would be quite like this. She was a woman of some imagination; moreover, were there one person in the world who touched her heart, then was it her mistress; she had penetrated, she thought, some of the strange secrets and fantasies of that old woman's soul, and it seemed that now, in these later days, she was at last in touch with every motive and grim artifice that her mistress adopted--