"It's good of you to come when you must be full of delightful ways of passing your time, Mr. Bulstrode," she said, "and I wanted so much to see you again." "Again?" "Of course," she replied nodding, "again and many times. But I mean I wanted to see you _here_." Bulstrode did not want her to tell him a piece of final news. He did not care to learn of an arbitrary departure, and he said, laughing: "Then you don't like my property? Any repairs you...?" "Oh, I adore The Dials," she said gravely, "and I can't think why they ever let you buy it, or what you'll do with it after I'm gone." She smiled. ".... or with whom." Before he could speak she added: "Where is my husband to-day?" "I left him wandering about the house like a lost spirit," Bulstrode replied. "Looking," he went on, "all about for something or other. I expect he himself didn't quite know what. For something to cheer up the empty rooms." "Oh, don't," she murmured. But he seemed pleased with the picture he drew. "I doubt if Westboro' stops in the house alone; he's probably gone out shooting." "But he has a house full of people....?" "No one has come, or is coming, after all." "You don't mean to say that they've all refused!" "Yes," Jimmy said, "every man of them, and all the women as well." The Duchess put out her hand quickly, and said touchingly: "Oh, but you don't for a moment think----" "That it's because of the scandal, dear lady?" he smiled. "Well, that would be a new phase. No, I think on the other hand they would revel, and the only reason in the world that they have not come down is that they were really asked too late. Christmas week, you know-- "And, of course, then, Mrs. Falconer," the Duchess's face brightened. "She----" "Oh, _she_!" Bulstrode exclaimed, "she's as right as possible. She's sure to be along in good season." "Oh!" accepted the Duchess, "and with whom does she come?" Bulstrode waited. "Well, of course, the poor thing expects to find more or less some one to help her bear up her end. And I can't say how she will take the fact of only us two." The Duchess interrupted cheerfully: "Why, she, of course, will go directly back! You don't think for a second that she would stop on alone like that?" "Alone?" Bulstrode gave her with a little malice. "But she'll have Westboro' and me so entirely to herself and one can always ask in the rector or curate or corral a neighbor." But the Duchess shook her head as if she understood. "Oh, no, not at this time." Bulstrode miscomprehended blithely: "Christmas time? You see, I know the visiting lady pretty well, and I believe she'll feel me to be more or less of a standby, and I know her spirit and her human kindness. I am inclined to think that she will feel it's up to her not to run off like a hare; to think that Westboro' may, in a way, need her; and that when she finds everybody's gone back on the poor man, and there's to be no tree after all, why, I'm tempted, by jove, to think----"