d, "Well, no one would ever believe _you'd_ had a bad night,
Miss Rand."--"You're fresh as a pin."

"Thank you," she said, laughing. "But, all the same, I _did_ sleep
badly."

"I'm not feeling princely myself," he confessed, "that's why I'm goin'
off for a ride, nothin' like a ride to take you out of yourself. Don't
you ever feel, Miss Rand, that you want to get right away from yourself
and be someone else?"

She looked at him. Roddy was in real trouble. His very physical strength
showed the more clearly that he was unhappy. His fingers moved
restlessly, his eyes were never still. She looked at her letters. There
was one from Lady Adela.

"Oh! I'm sorry--I'm afraid I shall have to go back almost
immediately--The Duchess is much less well--They're worried about her."

"The Duchess!" Roddy started up and then sat down again. "I'm sorry--I
was thinking about her only yesterday. What's the matter?"

"Lady Adela doesn't say, but she asks about you--the Duchess, I mean.
Got it into her head, Lady Adela says, that you're not well or
something."

"I'll write to her." Roddy spoke slowly as though to himself--"I've not
treated her very well lately and she's always been such a brick to me."
He left his breakfast, walked backwards and forwards once or
twice--"Always been such a brick to me, the old lady has," he repeated.

Lady Adela really did want Lizzie to return. This horrid war was getting
on her nerves, the house was all in disorder and nobody seemed either
well or happy.

"Somebody really does want me," thought Lizzie with a certain grim
satisfaction.

But she was terribly restless that morning. She could settle down to
nothing and ended by walking up and down the garden paths, watching the
pale winter light cross the Downs in sweeping shadow, seeing the bare
branches, all black and sharp against the blue distance.

How she loved life and how, at every turn, life was thrust from her! For
that other woman, there inside the house, two men were ready, eager to
die--for herself, in all the world, no one cared.

There came up to her again, borne as it were on the sharp winter air, a
determination to drive down Rachel's defences. The very sense that now,
after Lady Adela's letter, she must shortly return to London, hardened
her resolution.

Before breakfast she had felt that she did not care, now, quite suddenly
she was determined that she would confront Rachel and drag the truth
from her. How much did Rachel care