The potatoes boiled over; she moved the saucepan to a cooler spot and, finding a broom, swept the kitchen. Where was Elizabeth? She had left Seabourne for London; so much she had learnt from the porter at the station, but where was she now? It was a week since they had quarrelled, but it seemed like years. And Elizabeth did not write; she must be too angry, too bitterly disillusioned! She fetched the dust-pan and took up the dust; it lay in great unsightly flakes where she had swept it from corners neglected by the discontented maid. Elizabeth had sacrificed all the best years of her life for this, to be deserted, left in the end; she had offered all that she had to give, and she, Joan, had spurned it, hurled it back in her face--in Elizabeth's face! The bell clanged. "Milk!" Joan fetched a jug. "How much will you have to-day, miss?" "I don't know," said Joan vaguely. With a look of surprise the man filled the jug. "Fine weather, miss, after the rain." "Yes--oh, yes, very fine." She would write to her, go to her, anything but this; she would humble herself, implore forgiveness. If only she knew where she was; she would ask Ralph. No, what was the good? Elizabeth would not have her now, she did not want a weak-kneed creature who didn't know her own mind; she liked dependable, strong people like herself. "Joan!" came a voice. "Yes, Mother?" "Bring me my nerve tonic, dear." "Yes, Mother." "Oh, and bring me my shawl, I feel cold; you'll find it in my top right-hand drawer." She obeyed, fetching the shawl, measuring out the tonic in a medicine glass. "I don't feel it's doing me much good," Mrs. Ogden complained. "I slept very badly again last night." "You must give it time," said Joan comfortingly. "This is only your third dose." Where was Elizabeth? Had she found a new friend to share the flat? "You might go and buy me that trimming, some time to-day, darling; it may be all sold out if we wait." "All right, I'll go when I've tidied the house, Mother; they had plenty of it yesterday." But Mrs. Ogden persisted: "I have a feeling that it will all be sold out and I'm short by just half a yard. Can't you finish the house when you come back?" "I'd rather get on and finish it now, Mother; I'm quite sure it'll be all right." Mrs. Ogden reverted to the subject of the trimming again during lunch, and several times before tea. "We shall never get it," she complained querulously. "I feel sure it'll all be sold out!" She allowed herself to be a little monotonous these days, clinging to an idea with wearying persistence. In her husband's lifetime she would have been more careful not to irritate, but the restraint of his temper being removed, she no longer felt the necessity for keeping herself in hand.