She steadied herself and leaving the room and the house, went and fetched her car from the stables. She drove to the telegraph office at Upton: ‘Come back, I must see you at once,’ she wired, taking great care to prepay the reply, lest Angela should find an excuse for not answering. The clerk counted the words with her stump of a pencil, then she looked at Stephen rather strangely. 2 The next morning came Angela’s frigid answer: ‘Coming home Monday fortnight not one day sooner please no more wires Ralph very much upset.’ Stephen tore the thing into a hundred fragments and then hurled it away. She was suddenly shaking all over with uncontrollable anger. 3 Right up to the moment of Angela’s return that hot anger supported Stephen. It was like a flame that leapt through her veins, a flame that consumed and yet stimulated, so that she purposely fanned the fire from a sense of self preservation. Then came the actual day of arrival. Angela must be in London by now, she would certainly have travelled by the night express. She would catch the 12.47 to Malvern and then motor to Upton—it was nearly twelve. It was afternoon. At 3.17 Angela’s train would arrive at Great Malvern—it had arrived now—in about twenty minutes she would drive past the very gates of Morton. Half-past four. Angela must have got home; she was probably having tea in the parlour—in the little oak parlour with its piping bullfinch whose cage always stood near the casement window. A long time ago, a lifetime ago, Stephen had blundered into that parlour, and Tony had barked, and the bullfinch had piped a sentimental old German tune—but that was surely a lifetime ago. Five o’clock. Violet Antrim had obviously lied; she had lied on purpose to torment Stephen—Angela and Roger—it couldn’t be; Violet had lied because she liked to torment. A quarter past five. What Was Angela doing now? She was near, just a few miles away—perhaps she was ill, as she had not written; yes, that must be it, of course Angela was ill. The persistent, aching hunger of the eyes. Anger, what was it? A folly, a delusion, a weakness that crumbled before that hunger. And Angela was only a few miles away. She went up to her room and unlocked a drawer from which she took the little white case. Then she slipped the case into her jacket pocket. 4 She found Angela helping her maid to unpack; they appeared to be all but snowed under by masses of soft, inadequate garments. The bedroom smelt strongly of Angela’s scent, which was heavy yet slightly pungent. She glanced up from a tumbled heap of silk stockings: ‘Hallo, Stephen!’ Her greeting was casually friendly. Stephen said: ‘Well, how are you after all these weeks? Did you have a good journey down from Scotland?’ The maid said: ‘Shall I wash your new crêpe de Chine nightgowns, ma’am? Or ought they to go to the cleaners?’ Then, somehow, they all fell silent.