ight
in feeling that she was wholly her own again had died down. This masque
of friendship, in which she was whole-souled and he half-hearted, became
an anguish. He doubted his strength to keep it up. Sometimes he thought
that it would be more endurable to blurt out the truth and go into
banishment. He felt often that he would prefer the violent, final wound
of severance to the long, eked out pain of being near her only as a
friend.

Then one day in August he went to Breene, and as soon as he saw Sophy
felt sure that some crisis was upon them both.

In fact she had just received the following letter from Lady Wychcote:

"My dear Sophy, you must pardon me for breaking through my resolve, this
once, and alluding to a matter which I had seriously intended never
mentioning to you again. Clara Knowles came to call on me to-day. As you
probably know she has one of the most venomous tongues in England. She
had barely said 'How d'ye do' before she flooded me with enquiries as to
who was the 'foreigner that was making such running with Sophy Chesney.'
(I quote her own elegant expressions.) She said that 'The
Barton-Savidges' (a family also famed for scandal-mongering) 'vowed that
he was always either turning in at the Breene lodge gates, or coming out
of them.' Olive Arundel they said was 'gooseberry.' She asked if it were
true that he was a bigamist. And whether you really belonged to a 'free
love league' in the States as she had heard. I will not quote more of
her disgusting jargon. I only write this much of it, that you may see my
apprehensions on your behalf were not without reason." The rest of the
letter was confined to inquiries about Bobby, and suggestions as to a
special method of German, which had been recommended to her by an
ex-Secretary of Foreign Affairs, whose grandson was, at sixteen,
proficient in four modern languages, etc., etc.

This letter filled Sophy with rebellious anger, yet at the same time she
realised that it had to be considered seriously. The most painful part
of all was that she felt that she must speak about it to Amaldi. Despite
all her natural independence, she could not defy conventionality to the
extent of allowing their friendship to give rise to such odious gossip.
And she thought how strange and almost tragic it was, that the only
breath of scandal that had ever touched her should be caused by the one
perfectly clear, passionless affection of her life.

She told him of the letter as th