Everything that was to be told about my own uneventful life she knew before many days were passed, but of her own past she never spoke. From incidental remarks we found that she had been the godchild of a well-known politician long since dead, and that at eighteen she had been presented at Court, which two discoveries proved useful, as they were enough to convince the aunts that Charmion was a safe and desirable acquaintance. Before she was twenty the scene had apparently shifted to America, where she had lived for several years, and presumably--though she never said so--had met her husband and spent her brief married life. Widowed-- childless--thirty-two. Those few words supplied all that I knew of Charmion Fane, except the obvious facts which were patent to the eye. She was oddly undemonstrative, and for all her charm had a manner which made it impossible to approach one step nearer than she herself decreed. Even when it came to the moment of saying good-bye, I could not tell whether she wished to continue our friendship, or would be content to let it drop as a passing incident of travel; but to my joy she held on to my hand with a grip which was almost an appeal, and her thin, finely-cut lips twitched once and again. She looked full into my face with her strange eyes, the pupil large, the iris a light grey, ringed with an edge of black, and said simply, "I'll miss you! But--it will go on. We will always be friends." That was all, and during the two years which had passed since that day we had met only once, for another short summer holiday, and repeated invitations to The Clough had received the same refusal--"I am not ready for visit-making." Letters I had received in plenty, and she had sent Kathie a handsome-- really an extraordinarily handsome gift on her marriage, and to me the dearest of letters, understanding everything without being told, entering into my varying moods with exquisite comprehension. In return, I had poured out my heart, telling her of my loneliness, my difficulty about the next step, and now, at last, here came the reply. I sent Bridget away, drank my tea at a gulp, and settled down to read in luxurious enjoyment. It was a longer letter than I had yet received, and I had a premonition that it would clear the way. But I did not realise how epoch-making it was to prove. "Dear Evelyn Wastneys,--I've been through it, my dear, and I know! It doesn't bear talking of, so we _won't_ talk, but just pass on. What next? you ask. I have been trying to solve that problem for the last four years, and am no nearer a solution, so I can't tell you, my dear, but I have an idea which might possibly provide a half-way house for us both till the clouds lift.