Whitehall? Common sense told her that it probably
contained nothing but an answer to some questions Arthur had put to
the Squire's 'business secretary' as to the amount of ash in the
Squire's woods--Arthur's Intelligence appointment having something
to do with the Air Board. But the mere fact that Elizabeth should be
writing to him stirred intolerable resentment in the girl's
passionate heart. She knew very well that it was foolish,
unreasonable, but could no more help it than a love-smitten maiden
of old Sicily. It was her hour of possession, and she was struggling
with it blindly.

And Elizabeth, the shrewd and clever Elizabeth, saw nothing, and
knew nothing. If she had ever for a passing moment suspected the
possibility of 'an affair' between Arthur Chicksands and Pamela, she
had ceased to think of it. The eager projects with which her own
thoughts were teeming, had driven out the ordinary preoccupations of
womankind. Derelict farms, the food-production of the county,
timber, village reconstruction, war-work of various kinds, what time
was there left?--what room?--in a mind wrestling with a hundred new
experiences, for the guessing of a girl's riddle?

Yet all the same she remained her just and kindly self. She was
troubled--much troubled--by the twins' behaviour. She must somehow
get to the bottom of it.

So that when only she and Pamela were left in the hall she went up
to the girl, not without agitation.

'Pamela--won't you tell me?--have I done anything to offend you and
Desmond?'

She spoke very quietly, but her tone showed her wounded. Pamela
started and looked up.

'I don't know what you mean,' she said coldly. 'Did you think we had
been rude to you?'

It was the first hostile word they had ever exchanged.

Elizabeth grew pale.

'I didn't say anything about your being rude. I asked you if you
were cross with me.'

'Oh--cross!' said Pamela, suddenly conscious of a suffocating
excitement. 'What's the good of being cross? It's you who are
mistress here.'

Elizabeth fell back a step in dismay.

'I do think you ought to explain,' she said after a moment. 'If I
had done anything you didn't like--anything you thought unkind, I
should be very very sorry.'

Pamela rose from her seat. Elizabeth's tone seemed to her pure
hypocrisy. All the bitter, poisonous stuff she had poured out to
Desmond the night before was let loose again. Stammering and
panting, she broke into the vaguest and falsest accusatio