They were breaking their word to him, they who were standing now upon their honour. His laughing, friendly spirit, that had never touched her very closely, now seemed to cling to her more nearly than them all. He had kept outside all their family trouble, as he had kept outside all trouble since his birth. He had laughed at them, patted them on the shoulder, determined that if he did not look too closely at things they must be well, refused to see the rifts and divisions and unhappiness. Nevertheless he must have seen something; he had sent Henry to Cambridge, had looked at Millie and Katherine sometimes with a gravity that was not his old manner. Seeing him suddenly now, it was as though he knew what she was about to do, and was appealing to her with a new gravity: “Katie, my dear, I may have seemed not to have cared, to have noticed nothing, but now—don’t give us up. Wait. Things will be happier. Wait. Trust us.” She beat him down; stayed for another moment beside the window, her hands pressed close against her eyes. Then she went to her little writing-table, and scribbled very rapidly this note: DARLING MOTHER, I have gone with Philip by the eight train to London. We shall be married as soon as possible. I shall stay with Rachel until then. You know that things could not go on as they were. Will you understand, dear Mother, that if I did not love you so deeply I would not have done this? But because you would not let Phil go I have had to choose. If only you will understand that I do not love you less for this, but that it is for Phil’s sake that I do it, you will love me as before. And you know that I will love you always. Your devoted daughter, KATHERINE. She laid this against the looking-glass on her dressing-table, glanced once more at the room, then went. Upon the stairs she met Henry. “Hullo!” he cried, “going out? There’s a lot of rain coming.” “I know,” she answered quietly. “I have to see Penhaligan. It’s important.” He looked at her little black hat; her black coat. These were not the things that one put on for a hurried excursion into the village. “You’ll be late for dinner,” he said. “No, I shan’t,” she answered, “I must hurry.” She brushed past him; she had an impulse to put her arms round his neck and kiss him, but she did not look back. She went through the hall; he turned on the stairs and watched her, then went slowly to his room.