He went in, leaving the door open, and sat down at the writing-table. The room was a friendly heterogeneous place, the one repository, in the well-ordered and amply-servanted house, of all its unclassified odds and ends: Effie’s croquet-box and fishing rods, Owen’s guns and golf-sticks and racquets, his step-mother’s flower-baskets and gardening implements, even Madame de Chantelle’s embroidery frame, and the back numbers of the Catholic Weekly. The early twilight had begun to fall, and presently a slanting ray across the desk showed Darrow that a servant was coming across the hall with a lamp. He pulled out a sheet of note-paper and began to write at random, while the man, entering, put the lamp at his elbow and vaguely “straightened” the heap of newspapers tossed on the divan. Then his steps died away and Darrow sat leaning his head on his locked hands. Presently another step sounded on the stairs, wavered a moment and then moved past the threshold of the study. Darrow got up and walked into the hall, which was still unlighted. In the dimness he saw Sophy Viner standing by the hall door in her hat and jacket. She stopped at sight of him, her hand on the door-bolt, and they stood for a second without speaking. “Have you seen Effie?” she suddenly asked. “She went out to meet you.” “She DID meet me, just now, in the court. She’s gone on to join her brother.” Darrow spoke as naturally as he could, but his voice sounded to his own ears like an amateur actor’s in a “light” part. Miss Viner, without answering, drew back the bolt. He watched her in silence as the door swung open; then he said: “She has her nurse with her. She won’t be long.” She stood irresolute, and he added: “I was writing in there--won’t you come and have a little talk? Every one’s out.” The last words struck him as not well-chosen, but there was no time to choose. She paused a second longer and then crossed the threshold of the study. At luncheon she had sat with her back to the window, and beyond noting that she had grown a little thinner, and had less colour and vivacity, he had seen no change in her; but now, as the lamplight fell on her face, its whiteness startled him. “Poor thing ... poor thing ... what in heaven’s name can she suppose?” he wondered. “Do sit down--I want to talk to you,” he said and pushed a chair toward her. She did not seem to see it, or, if she did, she deliberately chose another seat. He came back to his own chair and leaned his elbows on the blotter. She faced him from the farther side of the table. “You promised to let me hear from you now and then,” he began awkwardly, and with a sharp sense of his awkwardness. A faint smile made her face more tragic. “Did I? There was nothing to tell. I’ve had no history--like the happy countries...” He waited a moment before asking: “You ARE happy here?” “I WAS,” she said with a faint emphasis.