But suddenly Louie had an odd little hesitation. She knew it to be ridiculous and a sentimentality, but while she did not want to send a particular message, she yet did not want to send the teacloth entirely without one. The opportunity for the little secret luxury would probably not occur again.... Kitty was condescendingly appraising her furniture again; on the mantelpiece lay a piece of blank card; it seemed to be there almost for a purpose, and furtively Louie took it. She scrawled an "L" upon it and slipped it into the parcel. A few minutes later Kitty left, taking the wedding present with her. Left at last alone, Louie once more went into her bedroom and threw herself on her bed. She lay with her hands clasped behind her head, her gaze now resting on Billy's etching, now straying idly over the brown-papered walls. So they were to be married. And after that? Well, she thought that on the whole she was glad. The curtain was about to fall on that drama that had begun at the Business School in Holborn, and so there would be an end of _that_.... What now? What about those fancy pictures with which she had beguiled herself as she had ridden on buses and trams and worked at her crochet during the rests? What about those half-whispered, nonsensical conversations? What about those drowsy, secret quarters of an hour out of which she had come with slight starts to smile at herself? They were to be married. What next? The answer came as if for months it had been merely awaiting her pleasure. It was as plain as day that she could now have as much of these as ever she pleased. For what it was worth, the freedom of her cuckoo-cloud-land was about to be definitely made over to her. Because nothing else was hers, that was all the more hers.... Kitty's tidings brought it so sharply home to her that she forgot that those sweet hours of licence were no new thing. She forgot that it was no new thing to walk, in fancy, the woods of Mallard Bois and the lanes of Rainham Parva with him by her side, no new thing to call his name down the remembered glades--"Jim!" (not, as others called him, "Jeff"). She forgot that it was old and outworn already; she saw in it only newness and liberty and delight. A Jim of sorts was now hers, ineluctably and for ever--a Jim who did not fool predestined spinsters--a Jim who would know better than blunder into a blind and stupid marriage--a Jim whose relentless hand had not--had not--had not---- But here, as she paused, the colour that had made her cheeks rosy ebbed as if a brush loaded with white had been passed over them. His ruthless hand had--had--almost certainly had---- It was as if, in her fancy, a prison bell had tolled and a black flag had been run up in the morning breeze----