II

The singer’s voice came to me clearly and the words of the song:

For all we know

We may never meet again …

Tomorrow may never come …

The plaintive song of some years before was brought to fresh life with the modern beat of Petula Clark. I didn’t want to hear it. I did not want those words, that tune to start humming through my mind.

I started to close the window when movement on the ground arrested me. This was the side of the house which overlooked the garage and stables. The buildings were set back at a fair distance from the house and partly screened by a splendid row of young beech trees. The driveway wound between these buildings and the house, and two men were crossing into view—Justin and his brother Marc.

Hidden by the blue draperies at my window, I studied Marc warily. His fair hair shone in the later afternoon sun, and I knew his eyes would be as heartbreakingly blue as ever. Not that they had ever broken my heart. Marc was too ultra good-looking to appeal to me. I liked a man to be more virile and rugged. There was a delicacy about Marc’s features which gave them that slightly inbred look one sometimes finds in young Englishmen of good family.

My flesh crept a little as I watched him approach the house with Justin. Even though the fault for what had happened two years ago had been as much mine as it had been Marc’s, and I had tried to use him for my own angry purpose, he had managed to use me far more cleverly. I had never quite fathomed his motives—they were too devious and obscure for any simple understanding. Certainly he had done nothing to help me once the chips were down. I knew more than ever that I wanted to be away from Athmore before I met him again.

The brothers seemed to be arguing heatedly as they approached the house, and Justin looked more glowering than ever. Once Marc glanced up toward the window from which Petula Clark’s tones were throbbing and I drew hastily back, lest his eyes pick me out at my window. Had he been told that I was here? I wondered. And I wondered too—as I had so often—how he had reconciled his position with his brother after I had fled from Athmore.

Since I could not bear to watch these two, I turned to the rear window which overlooked the topiary garden, thinking once more about my strange meeting with Old Daniel in the woods. His curious eagerness to see me—whom he had always regarded as a foreigner, with no right to stay at Athmore—had been altogether out of key. What was it he had tried to tell me about the chess game? “It’s the rook’s play,” he had said. I was to remember that. But of course it was the rook’s play! That, at least, I understood. Out on the grassy spaces of the vast chessboard one move of the black rook would place the white king in check. So it was forever up to White to save the game and save the white king by counterstrategy. Everyone knew this who lived at Athmore. So why had Old Daniel urged the fact upon me and warned me that the white king had better “watch out.”

Nellie’s knock on my door rescued me from unanswered questions and I hurried to open it. The news that Maggie would see me in her sitting room right away was welcome. Now I could finish what I had to do and leave for London tomorrow. There must be no wavering, no more indecision. I told myself there was just one thing I wanted to make sure of first—that the pictures I had taken had turned out well. I removed the film from the camera, talking to Nellie as I did so.

“Your Jamie used to make a hobby of photography, didn’t he? Do you suppose he could develop this roll for me and print a set of pictures? I’d like very much to make sure they came out before I leave tomorrow.”

She took the roll and slipped it into her pocket. “Of course he’ll be glad to do them for you, Miss. I’ll bring them for sure when I come in tomorrow morning. He’s sold off his enlargement camera, but he can still do developing and printing.”

We went into the corridor together, and Nellie cocked an ear in the direction of the music that came faintly from behind a closed door toward the front of the house.

“She’s at it day and night that one,” she said, with no great respect for the presence of a guest, and free with me as she would never have been with other members of the family.

“Who is she?” I asked.

Nellie rolled her eyes. “That’s Miss Dacia—Mr. Marc’s latest.” Her shrug indicated disapproval. I had no interest in Marc’s women and I asked no more questions.

“You needn’t come with me, Nellie,” I said. “I haven’t forgotten the way.”

A little uncertainly she left me and went off toward the back stairs, perhaps remembering how I had managed to get lost in the house when I had first lived here.

I hurried through the long gallery that connected north and south wings, with a fleeting glance at the remote wall to which Mr. Dunscombe’s portrait had been relegated. There had been a time when I had felt a certain comradely sympathy for that unhappy son-in-law, but I had no time to pay my respects now. On the floor below, the stairway opened into the great library, and I went through the doorway with a familiar sense of recognition.

The word “great” aptly described the room. The library occupied the area directly above the Hall of Armor. The wide boards of its darkly polished floor were bare except for occasional small rugs, and bookcases reached from floor to high ceiling along every available wall. Three chandeliers marched the length of the ceiling, and there was comfortable room at either end for two fireplaces. Chairs and sofas grouped themselves down the room, but there were oases for the solitary reader as well, with a lamp suitably placed, or a tall window which could light the room brightly when the sun was shining. I had always liked the library, for all that it could turn to gloom and shadow by night, or on a gray winter’s day.

At the far end a doorway let me into the second-floor corridor of the south wing, and I followed it toward Maggie’s rooms at the rear. Marc’s apartment had occupied the front end of the house off this corridor, I remembered, and was probably still there, since Athmore was not a house given to change.

Maggie’s bedroom was a spacious affair, with a smaller sitting room opening off it and overlooking the rear corner of the floor. It was at the open door of this room that I paused. Inside, a fire burned cozily—in my honor, undoubtedly, since Americans were always cold in English houses.

Maggie was waiting for me. “Come in,” she called, “and do close the door after you. We’ll need to have an uninterrupted chat, won’t we?”

Her tone lacked warmth and I knew that we had moved a long way from our old affectionate relationship. In the beginning Maggie had not accepted me with enthusiasm as Justin’s impulsively acquired bride, but lame ducks had always been her specialty, and when she decided that I was one she had given me her ready friendship—even guardianship—providing I took a willing third place to Marc and Justin. Of course in the end she had discovered that instead of being a satisfactory lame duck, I was only a square peg—and a bit defiantly so—unable to fit into the well-grooved round holes of Athmore. But I had loved Maggie Graham, and I hated to lose her as my friend.

At least I was glad to see her alone in this small private sitting room which had been carved off from the larger bedroom. Here Athmore grandeur had been very nearly banished. The rug had long ago faded to pale yellow-green and the walls had only a hint of sunlight painted into them. Most of the furniture was shabby, though of good vintage, and the upholstered things were slipcovered in plain materials. Maggie would have no Athmore ancestors looking down from her walls. Instead, there were outdoor scenes—watercolors of woods and hill-surrounded lakes, and one of a fox running, with the red-coated hunt coming after. I had once looked doubtfully at that very picture, and Maggie had said, “Don’t worry—the fox will get away. You can tell by the clumsy seat of those riders. It’s a ridiculous picture, but I like its colors. They cheer me when things are going badly, and its absurdity makes me smile.”

Things had often gone badly for Maggie. She had come to Athmore as a young girl when her mother took charge after the death of Justin’s and Marc’s parents in a tragic, flaming auto crash. After her mother died, Maggie, though only a few years older than Justin, had stepped into the breech so that Athmore continued to be their home. She had eventually married, only to lose her young husband at El Alamein during the war. She had not married again. Maggie never lacked courage and the ability to act, so that I found her a comforting and sustaining presence during my year at Athmore. Her optimistic belief that she could make things turn out for the best was reassuring, if not always practical. Now it was disconcerting to find this coolness in her despite the lie she had told for me.

I sat in a chair drawn invitingly near the fire, while she took the soft-cushioned sofa opposite me. Staring at a picture above the mantel—one Maggie herself had painted of an Athmore mare with a crescent of white on its black forehead, and sensitive velvet nostrils—I found an opening to break what seemed a too watchful silence.

“What about the stables—the horses?” I asked. “There was talk before I left of getting rid of them.”

“That’s been done,” she told me brusquely. “Cars are a necessity these days. There are three or four of those around the place now. The horses were a luxury and they had to go. Marc never cared for riding, and Justin no longer has time for it.”

So of course Maggie, who loved horses and riding, had made the necessary sacrifice in order to economize. I hoped that Nigel Barrow—if she married him—would give her a stableful and a place to ride them.

“I noticed your ring,” I said.

She glanced at the star sapphire on her left hand. The choice was a good one for her strong, capable hand. The delicacy of other jewels would have seemed a contradiction of her nature.

“Nigel chose it,” she said.

That was one up for old Nigel, I thought. I’d not have expected him to be so perceptive.

“It was Nigel who persuaded me to write and bring you here,” she added.

“Nigel?” I could not have been more surprised. “But why? Why did he think I should come?”

Maggie Graham was as honest a person as I had ever known—except where Justin and Marc were concerned. For them she would lie, or cheat, or do whatever was necessary to protect the charge she had taken so willingly upon her own shoulders when she was young. I had seen her do it. Now, however, she attempted to be frank, even though she watched me uneasily as she spoke, so that I wondered what it was she held back.

“It’s this possible marriage of Justin’s that appalls me. Nigel knows how worried I am. And since Justin has been like a brother to him, Nigel is worried too. Neither of us believes it can turn out well under the present circumstances.”

I’d had enough of evasion. “Is it Alicia Daven Justin means to marry?” I asked bluntly.

Maggie’s answer was indirect. “You’re the only one who might stop it, Eve. There were reasons for not sending for you, as you very well know. But Nigel thinks they no longer matter. What matters now is how you feel about Justin. That’s what I meant to talk to you about in London. Because there was no use in your coming here if you no longer care for him.”

This was something I could not answer—not even to myself. What Justin did was up to Justin and I could not interfere, no matter now much I hated to think that Alicia might someday be his wife. When he and I had married he had not told me about his past affair with her. In what I considered his arrogance, he had not felt it necessary for me to know, and consequently I had blundered unprepared into learning about her.

The facts had been simple enough. When Justin would not discuss Alicia with me, Maggie had told me about her. Alicia was Justin’s age and she had grown up at Grovesend, her parents’ house, not far from Athmore. Justin had known her all his life. After her mother died her father had lost heavily through unwise investments, so when she was old enough Alicia had taken a job in London on a fashion magazine. For several years she did not see much of Justin. Then a wealthy uncle had left her a tidy sum in his will, so she had chucked her job and returned to take over at Grovesend. Upon her father’s death she stayed on alone, and that was when she set her cap seriously for Justin.

“I could have liked her,” Maggie had told me. “She has beauty and a great deal of poise, and she was born to Justin’s world. But she always had a reckless, irresponsible streak that led her into escapades. I suppose their affair was a bit sultry, though things don’t last forever on that level alone. You came along and spoiled everything for her. She wasn’t able to hold him.”

This was the thing I had never understood. The why of Justin’s turning to me.

I looked up from the flaming coals of the fire and met Maggie’s gaze directly.

“Why?” I said. “Why did he marry me instead of Alicia, when he must have been in love with her all the time?”

Maggie snorted. “Athmore blood never seems to prompt its owners to reasonable behavior. Justin manages to keep his driving impulses under control most of the time. Perhaps that’s why they break out of bounds when he lets go.”

“But if he loved Alicia—”

“Oh, he did. For a time. But he didn’t trust her, and that always held him back. I’ve an idea the affair was thinning out a bit when you turned up. Somehow he trusted you at once. Don’t think he didn’t sing your praises to me! You know how he sets integrity above everything else, and you had all that straightforward American honesty on display. Besides, you had a special young appeal of your own, and you knew a great deal about Athmore. So he made the mistake of marrying you.”

I stared at the fire again. I knew what was coming now.

Maggie jumped restlessly to her feet, a tall figure in brown tweeds as she paced the faded yellow-green rug. “You could hardly have behaved more outrageously, Eve. Carrying on with Marc practically under Justin’s nose. Not that it fooled me—or Marc, either. You had to make Justin jealous because of Alicia, didn’t you? You had to destroy his belief in you. You had to behave like an absolute idiot!”

“Which I was,” I admitted.

I reached my hands toward the fire because the chill of Athmore had seeped into my bones. What Maggie accused me of was true, yet what had happened had not been exactly as she claimed. There had been circumstances that I might have explained at the time—if anyone had been willing to listen and believe me. I had been stupid, but I had not been faithless.

“What I found hardest to take was the way you deliberately involved Marc,” Maggie went on. “I’ve never forgiven you for that.”

So this was what Marc had told her, leaving no loophole for anything I might say. And of course this was what Justin believed.

Maggie was still pacing. “I had a dreadful time persuading Justin not to send Marc away from Athmore for good. I’ve never thanked you for what I went through for Marc at the time.”

“Apparently you succeeded,” I said wryly.

She came to a halt in front of me. “I’ve never understood it—never! Oh, I knew you were trying to slap out at Justin, but this seemed a cheap thing to do. I’d have expected more of you. I thought you loved Justin.”

“I did,” I said.

“And don’t you now?”

I would not look at her. I wanted to answer furiously that I hated him. Yet I could not.

“I—I don’t know,” I said truthfully. My emotions were a tumult of confusion. How could I know how I felt while I was being tugged in so many directions?

Maggie turned from me and went to a window where the trumpet flowers of an azalea plant bloomed deeply pink in a green pot. Beyond lay the lawns and woods of Athmore that she had loved and served so well.

“What sort of an answer is that—you don’t know?” she asked after a moment.

“It’s no answer,” I admitted and gathered my courage for the hard thing I must say. “There’s nothing I can do. Justin has made his choice. Tomorrow I’ll be gone and I won’t have to see him again. I only came here to—to get myself back.”

She swung about so suddenly that I was startled. Without warning she swooped across the room, to put her strong, square hands upon my shoulders, pulling me up to face her. Like all the Norths, Maggie was tall, and I had to tilt my head to look up at her.

“Shaking me isn’t going to help,” I said.

She dropped her hands from my shoulders as if I’d slapped her and ran the fingers of one hand through her short graying hair, so that it looked the way it did when I’d seen her come in wind-rumpled from a ride on her favorite mare.

“I’m sorry, Eve,” she said. “Along with other traits I seem to have inherited the Athmore spleen. You’re the last one I should be angry with. When I saw you suddenly in the topiary garden this afternoon, I began to hope that Nigel was right and that just as you rescued Justin from Alicia before, you might save him again. You’re my last chance, I suppose, but I mustn’t blame you and scold you. Let’s sit down quietly, my dear, and talk this over.”

I dropped into my chair by the fire and braced myself to resist this softening, to resist any pressure she might put upon me.

“Justin can’t possibly marry that dreadful woman,” she told me flatly.

“Why not?” I challenged her. “If Justin wants her, what can you do?”

“Listen to me,” she said more quietly. She sat opposite me, her hands clapsed about her knees. “I never wrote you about how it was here after you left. Justin was like a wild man. He was sickened by your behavior and he was through with you, but I think he loved you and he didn’t take kindly to suffering over you. Goodness knows, Alicia would have offered him solace, but he was in no mood for her then. She was clever enough to wait. She went out of the country, took a jaunt around the world, and stayed away for a year. In the meantime her investments went well and she came home a richer woman than before and flung herself into a new venture. She bought a small casino in London—the Club Casella. She retained its original owner—a man named Leo Casella—as general manager. It was the sort of thing to satisfy her taste for gambling—though she doesn’t play the tables. She likes to appear as hostess—quite elegantly, you know—several nights a week, and she has made the club very smart and popular. Very jet set and swinging, and open only to the right people. Gambling’s quite the thing in London now, and Alicia fits in well.”

I wanted to hear none of this. None of it mattered except the fact that Alicia and Justin were together again. But Maggie showed me no mercy, and I had to listen.

“The odd thing about Alicia is that she seems to have come home a different woman. Outwardly. If anything, she’s more fascinating than before. But she seems to have learned a new serenity as well. I think she’s developed a lovely act, so that she seems to be offering comfort and peace to a lonely man. What used to exist between them seems to have deepened and matured.”

I swallowed hard. “Then why am I here?”

Maggie leaned toward me. “Because Nigel and I both believe that Justin is being thoroughly fooled. What Alicia has learned in her year away is how to play the role that will most please Justin.”

“He isn’t stupid!” I cried. “And he can’t like this gambling club. That’s not his sort of thing.”

“He doesn’t like it at all,” Maggie agreed. “But Alicia has convinced him that it’s a toy with which she amuses herself—though Nigel suspects that it’s a major source of her income. Anyway, she’s promised to give it up when she and Justin marry. She’ll come to him as a rich wife who will take the curse of poverty from Athmore.”

“That’s not why he’d marry her,” I put in indignantly.

“Of course not. But her money wouldn’t hurt, would it? Besides—if you love him so much that you must spring to his defense, why are you running away? Why don’t you stay and fight for what you want? Aren’t you woman enough by this time?”

I stared at her, appalled. After what she had told me, how could she possibly expect me to stay?

“I don’t love him,” I said as calmly as I could. “I don’t even hate him. I don’t feel anything at all about him except the need to go home and forget him. I can do that now. I’m glad you brought me here because you’ve made that possible.”

“If you must lie,” Maggie said, “learn to do it with more confidence. If you blunder into statements like that, with your fists flailing, no one will ever believe you.”

There was nowhere to hide my hot face. “Do you think I want to stay and be abused by Justin, insulted by him—treated the way he treated me today in the garden?”

“He treated you as he did because you upset him so badly,” Maggie said. “That’s the thing that gives me hope. He couldn’t take the sight of you calmly. He couldn’t shrug you off as he wanted to, so he had to fly into a rage and take his anger with himself out on you. How can two people be such total idiots about each other? Why don’t you wake up and face the truth about yourselves?”

I heard her out bleakly and said nothing more. I had done enough damage by trying to argue with Maggie Graham. She had always believed what she wanted to believe, and I must not let her words sway me into some impossible course that would hurt me more in the long run than if I turned tail and fled. The difficulty between Justin and me was no mere matter of a misunderstanding that could be cleared up with a little discussion. Quite aside from Alicia, there was too real a basis for our incompatibility and no chance at all that either could change enough to live with the other. A physical attraction there had certainly been—and so strong a one that it had clouded even Justin’s better judgment, while I had been too young to have any sort of judgment about my own emotions. Once the edge was off a little, we saw each other as the strangers we really were, and the trouble began. It wasn’t in me to play a role, as Alicia had apparently learned to do. If he couldn’t love me as I was, then I didn’t want his love anyway.

Maggie continued to watch me, and her look made me increasingly uneasy. Like Justin, she was never one to give up on a direction she had settled upon.

“Don’t you know what brought you here?” she asked abruptly. “You’re a grown woman and it’s time you faced up to a few things. At nineteen we couldn’t expect much of you. Now the least you can do is think this through sensibly. Face it and figure it out with your perfectly good brain, instead of using all that uncontrolled American emotion. Come downstairs tonight and join us for dinner. Get into the order of things again. Justin won’t be here. He’s going to Grovesend—you’ve frightened him that badly.”

So he had run from me straight to Alicia!

“Please—I don’t want to come down to dinner,” I said. “It’s not only because of Justin. I don’t want to see Marc either. The things he told you and Justin weren’t wholly true. Marc wanted me to leave. I never realized it until the end, but he wanted our marriage to break up.”

“And you helped him along,” Maggie said.

Marc was her darling, but there were times when I suspected that she had few illusions about him. She gave evidence of that now.

“Of course he was against your marriage. Marc would like to stay next in line as heir. Children could spoil that for good. His approach to such matters is fairly simple—he is always in need of money. In fact—that’s his main difficulty now. I might as well tell you that one of the reasons I feel about Alicia as I do is because she’s encouraged Marc to run up huge debts at her club. She’s using him—perhaps as a weapon to hold over Justin’s head. Though she’d be skillful in using it, and she hasn’t let Justin know about this as yet.”

“Marc’s troubles are nothing to me,” I said. “And Justin can take care of his own head. I’ve told you—I never want to see Marc again.”

Maggie drew a long, deep breath and I knew she was angry with me. “You needn’t have any concern about Marc now. He has found a little girl who seems able to lead him about by the nose.”

“The girl who plays Petula Clark recordings?” I asked.

“Endlessly. Dacia Keane. She’s been rather a shock for Athmore to absorb. Far more than you ever were, since she’s the new England. She considers us terribly square Establishment, but she tolerates us kindly and forgives us our shabby luxury. She knows all about turning the world into something more swinging, and doesn’t mind telling us how we muff our chances. But you can come downstairs quite safely, Eve, since Justin won’t be there.”

“I’m not hungry,” I said.

Maggie sighed, but she gave in to my stubbornness more gracefully than usual. “Very well—stay here by the fire, and I’ll send you an early supper tray. After that flight across the Atlantic, you’ll be ready for a long night’s rest. Tomorrow we’ll have another chat. I’ve a number of things to see to now, so you can have this room to yourself for the evening, if you like. I’ll send up an old friend to see you in a little while. Perhaps someone more persuasive than I’ve been able to be.”

“Not Justin!” I cried in alarm.

“When were you two ever friends?” she said dryly, and was gone before I could offer further objection.

I sat beside the fire and watched the coals flame and redden, turning gradually to dead gray. I lacked the energy to get up and put on more coal before the fire went out altogether. The afternoon had darkened into evening, and as the light outside diminished, the room lost itself in shadow. Even to get up and turn on a lamp would take too much effort. All I wanted was to sit here and think carefully and clearly about what Maggie had said. The things I’d said to her had rushed out easily, defensively—and she had not believed them. So what did I believe? What did I feel? Was it possible to face what I felt about Justin? When was I going to accept the truth about him and give him up?

“Maggie?” said a voice from the doorway.

I had no need to look around to know that Marc stood on the threshold of the dusky room. He was the last person I wanted to see. If I stayed very still perhaps he would go away without noticing me. It was a futile hope, since my shadowy figure must have shown up against the last red coals in the grate.

“So it’s you, Eve,” he said easily, and came into the room. “I’d heard you were here, but I could hardly believe you’d come back.”

I said nothing as he turned on a lamp and went to poke up the fire and put on more coal. I blinked in the sudden light and forced myself to look at him when he turned from the fireplace. I had been wrong to think when I saw him from my window earlier that two years had not changed him. Firelight touched his pale hair to gold in the old way, but he seemed thinner than I remembered and there was a tension about him that was new. The mockery in his intensely blue eyes was the same, however, and the faintly teasing quality I had mistakenly thought good-natured.

“What a time for you to come back, Eve old dear!” he said, and draped himself gracefully upon the sofa opposite me. “What on earth do you expect to gain by it?”

“I’ve nothing to say to you,” I told him stiffly.

He stretched his long legs upon Maggie’s fawn-colored slipcovers and leaned one elbow on a cushion, the better to observe me.

“You look rather different,” he said. “Less wide-eyed and trusting. Older, I suppose. It’s becoming, I must say. But you’re too late, you know. I suppose Maggie has told you that Justin has cast the die with Alicia, and all that sort of thing. Justin’s in a rage about your coming, of course. He’s not after offending Alicia at this late date. We all rather need her in the family now, you know. Or don’t you know?”

“It’s none of my affair what you need,” I said. “Just go away and leave me alone.”

He did not move, but his rather delicate features lighted in an angelic way I remembered. How many hearts had he broken by the deceptive sweetness of his smile? I wondered. Mine had been safe enough from him, though my wounded ego had not been. But everything was changed now. I mustn’t be afraid of him.

He continued to watch me, obviously speculating. He had always been enormously curious and ready to probe callously for answers to anything that puzzled him. My attempt to ignore him only amused and intrigued him.

“What can you hope to gain by coming here?” he repeated. “With Alicia’s money to help out, Justin can afford to make you a much handsomer settlement than before. If you don’t rock the boat—”

I sprang up to face him, my temper as easily lost as ever. “I don’t want any settlement! You would never understand why I came. Not in a thousand years. And I’m leaving early tomorrow anyway. So there’s nothing for us to discuss—nothing at all!”

He listened to my outburst without getting to his feet, and his sweetly wicked smile did not waver. “They’ve put you in the blue lady’s room, haven’t they? Dacia’s at the other end of that hall. You must meet her before you go. I’ve told her all about you, you know.”

There was something about Marc that had always made me not only angry, but uneasy as well. Even during that reckless time when all I’d cared about was punishing Justin, I had been a little afraid of Marc. And my fears had been justified. But in this tenser, older man, there seemed to lie some deeper threat. I started toward the door and he let me go, but before I could reach the corridor my way was blocked by the appearance of Nellie with my supper tray, and Maggie’s secretary, who followed beyond. Miss Davis smiled at me, and Marc got to his feet and drew up a table before the fire so Nellie could set down her tray.

“I wanted to make certain you have everything you need, Mrs. North,” Caryl Davis ran on, her voice at conversational pitch, now that she was not lecturing. “Fancy not knowing who you were when you joined our tour this afternoon! When Mrs. Graham told me, I was quite upset about not giving you a proper welcome.”

Marc winked at me. “I hope we’ve made up for that by now. I’ll run, and let you dine in peace. There’s all that glass mess in Justin’s shop still to be seen to, and a guard to be arranged for tonight. Cheerie-bye, my dear.” Marc loved to affect any vulgarism.

Nellie had her antenna out, as always, and she had seen my face. She bent toward me. “The soup’s hot and strengthening, Miss Eve. See you eat every scrap of it, now. And I’ll go fetch a hot-water bottle for your bed, the way I used to do. Not that this is the season for it, what with its being so warm outdoors. But I remember how you liked your hot-water bottle, and you shall have one now. Do eat up.”

She looked at me so kindly that I felt weak tears in my eyes and I had to blink to keep them back.

“I’ll try,” I told her. And to Miss Davis, “Thank you. I’ll be fine now. You needn’t trouble about me.”

Nellie hurried off, but Miss Davis lingered. I pulled my chair closer to the table and took a spoonful of thick soup with beef chunks floating in it, hoping she would go quickly away. Instead, she moved about the room, turning the pot of azaleas, straightening the hunting picture a trifle, tugging the corner of a slipcover—all empty gestures to give her an excuse to stay. I could hardly bear to swallow, but I kept on with the soup in order not to watch her.

“I suppose you’ve heard about what happened to Mr. Justin’s workshop?” she said, perhaps experimenting with this topic because she was curious about me. “It’s quite dreadful, really. All those glass bottles and vials broken and his work spoiled. It’s the third time in as many weeks that someone has broken into his shop. They say he’s really onto something this time, and we’re afraid someone is trying to stop him, or even steal what he’s trying to do.”

This, at least, interested me. “What is he trying to do?”

She glanced at me a little coyly. “Ah, that’s what we mustn’t talk about, Mrs. North. Not that we know anything. Not really. But with the way he drives about testing that new experimental car of his, we know it’s something big coming up. You can tell by the look of the car it’s not regular. Though of course this is nothing any of us can work out, is it? Mrs. Graham is terribly concerned about him now, and a new, added worry—” She broke off apologetically, but the tenor of her remarks was evident. I was the new worry.

“You needn’t concern yourself—I’m leaving tomorrow,” I told her abruptly.

She had the grace to flush. “Please enjoy your supper. And I do apologize for not recognizing you on the tour this afternoon. Though how we could know—”

She left me at last and I put down my spoon and stared without interest at the food on the tray. All I wanted was the thin bread and butter, and I’d have liked a cup of strong American coffee. But I sat with my hands in my lap, all energy drained from me. How I was to face the long walk upstairs to the opposite wing of the house, I didn’t know. The numbness was coming back again—and perhaps it was better to be numb than to feel, than to face the fact, as I must inevitably, that Justin was lost to me forever. His coming marriage to Alicia was irrevocably set, and only Maggie, prompted by Nigel, who could not really know, was ready to pin some faint hope on my coming here. Maggie was a born optimist, who always believed she could wrench a change of mind from fate, even when everything was at its worst. At least she need not stay at Athmore and share it with Alicia when Justin married her. Nigel Barrow would take her away to the home of her own she so richly deserved.

I must rouse myself, I thought. I must finish what I could eat and return to my faraway room. But as I sat listless, something cold and damp thrust its way beneath my hand and came to rest on my knee. A long muzzle and lean head, shaggy-haired, lay beneath my hand. Round brown eyes looked up at me, questioning.

“Deirdre!” I cried, and the dog wriggled, coming as close as she could with her great, rough, brindle-gray body. Her long tail, curved upward at the tip, thumped on the carpet as she snuffled at me hopefully, and her small neat ears pricked erect at the sound of my voice.

“You’re only hungry,” I said. “You don’t really remember me!”

I put my arms about her and let her sniff my neck, lick my cheek. This was the way it had been when I had said goodby to her that other time. Legend had it that Irish wolfhounds were gifted with second sight, and certainly Deirdre had been remarkably sensitive, even as a puppy. When I’d said goodby to her she had whimpered and whined, and her tail had drooped sadly. But now she was full of joy. When I encouraged her, she put her paws upon my knee and raised herself to a height greater than mine in my chair. It wasn’t only the food she was interested in, after all. Whether she truly knew me or not, I couldn’t tell, but she recognized someone she felt at home with, and certainly she must feel my response.

When we had greeted each other thoroughly, I persuaded her to sit at my feet, and I shared bits of ham with her as I ate. I had a friend at Athmore, after all. Dear Maggie had known and had sent her to me.

Suddenly I felt hungry and considerably stronger than I had a while ago. I put all hard thoughts of the future away from me and finished every bite of my supper, while Deirdre watched me with love, her proud neck arched, her tail occasionally thumping out her approval. Somewhere in me courage stirred. All the cards seemed stacked against me, but I wasn’t beaten yet.