They were silent. Suddenly he gripped her shoulder, and they both turned and looked behind them. “I thought I heard someone laugh,” he whispered. She rose, then before they moved away, put her arm round him with a close, maternal gesture that she had never used to him before. BOOK III KATHERINE AND ANNA CHAPTER I KATHERINE ALONE It happened that in the middle of July there was to be a Trenchard-Faunder wedding in London. It was to be a quite especial Trenchard-Faunder wedding that no Trenchard or Faunder must miss. A Miss Dorothy Faunder, daughter of Colonel Faunder of Foxley Park, Wilts, was to marry her cousin Humphrey Trenchard, second son of Sir Geoffrey Trenchard of Tredent Hall, Truxe, in Glebeshire, and 22 Bryanston Square, W.... The wedding was to be towards the end of the season, before Goodwood and Cowes; and St. Margaret’s, Westminster, was to be the scene of the Ceremony. Of course the George Trenchards of Garth would be present—there was never any question of that—but at the same time it was an inconvenient interference with normal life. Trenchards and Faunders saw, as a rule, little of London in the season unless there was a daughter coming out or a wedding or a Presentation at Court. George Trenchard greatly disliked being torn from Garth during July and August, and it was only an exceptional demand that could uproot him. This demand _was_ exceptional. Of course they must all be there. On the evening before the departure for London Katherine sat alone in her bedroom looking through her bright window on to the garden beneath her. The July evening was close and oppressive—the garden was almost black, with a strange quivering bar of pale yellow light behind the trees. The scents came up to the open window heavily—there was no breeze. Now and then a dog barked as though it were challenging someone. Although there was no breeze, the trees sometimes shivered very faintly. One star glittered between the black clouds. Katherine sat at the open window smelling the pinks and the roses, her room dim behind her with a pale metallic glow. She felt oppressed by the evening, and at the same time strangely excited, as though something was about to happen. But beyond this she was conscious of a curious combative loneliness that should have been a miserable thing, but was in reality something challenging and almost defiant. Defiant of what? Defiant of whom? She thought of it as she sat there.