She was as good as her word. She had a miscarriage two weeks later, and became quite light-hearted again. One day she came into my dressing-room when I was shaving to tell me that, as she was not quite fit enough to hunt, she was going up to London, and had taken a suite at Claridge’s. And then I received the worst shock of my life. She bent down for a moment to smell a bowl of roses on the dressing table. I had my razor in my hand, and for a moment I believed I could not restrain myself from cutting that lovely throat. With an agonising effort of self-control, I flung the razor on the floor. Ethel glanced up quickly, and, I suppose, partially understood the look in my face, for she put her hands to her eyes and ran from the room. She went up to London after breakfast, leaving me to my thoughts. For the rest of the day I could not control my nerves nor stay still for a moment, for my brain continually forced that hideous picture before my eyes. I could see her writhing on the carpet, the blood gushing from her throat. And that night, each time I fell into an uneasy doze, it came as a fleeting dream vision more vivid and more vile. I knew I was receiving a most urgent warning, that my subconsciousness was telling me that inevitably, if I continued to see her, one day I should kill her. The next morning I met Margaret Pascal. It was the only time I have figured in one of those coy sexual situations beloved by the authors of scenarios, for I found her embraced by barbed wire in Far Wood. After I had disentangled her and noticed the lovely junction of her legs and feet, we began a vague little talk. I told her my name. “This is all yours then,” she said. “Was I trespassing?” “Technically, yes,” I replied. “But please commit the offence as often as you like.” “I am staying with the Franks,” she said, “and was just wandering about. As a matter of fact, I adore birds, and there’s a shrike’s larder in that thorn just there, and I wanted to examine the grisly little feast.” She had a curiously deep and individual voice, and one can fall in love with a voice at first hearing, as I did. While we inspected the sorry and dismembered collation, each drawn, quartered and impaled remnant fluttering in the breeze, I appraised her. I had learned bitterly to distrust women’s looks, so I paid little attention to her physical attributes. It was a certain combination of sweetness and intelligence, of gentleness and determination, and her all-pervading rightness, which lulled and soothed and stirred and excited me. She told me afterwards that I had the same immediate effect on her. A certain tension established itself, a happy unease. When we parted I asked her if she would like me to show her over a part of the estate which was specially famous for its birds and beasts, for I had forbidden my keepers to shoot or trap there. She said she would love it, and I arranged to fetch her in the car early next day.