Not expecting Peter Kennedy, but Gabriel Stanton, she was already arrayed in one of her trousseau dresses, a simple walking-costume of blue serge, a shirt of fine cambric, and was spending a happy hour trying on hat after hat to decide not only which was most suitable but which was the most becoming. Hearing wheels on the gravel she looked out of the window. Seeing Peter she almost made up her mind not to go down. She had just decided on a toque of pansies ... she might try the effect on Peter. She was a little disingenuous with herself, vanity was the real motive, although she sought for another as she went downstairs. Peter was in the drawing-room, staring vacantly out of the window. He never noticed her new clothes. She saw that in his eyes, and it quenched any welcome there might have been in hers. It was her expression he answered with his impulsive: “I had to come!” “Had you?” “You mustn’t be satirical,” he said desperately. “Or be what you like, what does it matter? I’d rather have shot myself than come to you with such news....” Her sudden pallor shook him. “You can guess of course.” “No, I can’t.” “That blasted woman!” “Go on.” “She has written again. Sit down.” She sank into the easy-chair. All her radiance was quenched, she looked piteous, pitiable. He could not look at her. “I came up here yesterday afternoon, meaning to tell you. You were so damned happy I couldn’t get it out.” “So damned happy!” she repeated after him, and the words were strange on her white lips, her laugh was stranger still and made him feel cold. “You haven’t got to take it like that; we’ll find a way out. I suppose, after all, it’s only a question of money....” “I cannot give her more money.” “I’ve got some. I can get more. You know I haven’t a thing in the world you are not welcome to, you’ve made a man of me.” “It is not because I haven’t the money to give her.” She spoke in a strange voice, it seemed to have shrunk somehow, there was no volume in it, it was small and colourless. “I don’t know how much she wants. I have wired her and paid a reply. I daresay her answer is there by now. I’ll phone and ask if you like.” “What’s the use?” “Well, we’d better know.” “He said that is what would happen. That she would come again and yet again.” She was taking things even worse than he expected. “He will never give in to her, never....” She collapsed fitfully, like an electric lamp with a broken wire. “Everything is over, everything.” “I don’t see that.” She went on in that small colourless voice: “I know. We don’t see things the way Gabriel does. I promised to tell him, to consult him if she came again.” He hesitated, even stammered a little before he answered: “He ... he had better not be told of this.” She laughed again, that little incongruous hopeless laugh. “I haven’t any choice, I promised him.” “Promised him what?” “To let him know if she came back again, if I heard anything more about it.”