alone?" he said, and there was a question in his voice. Who was he
thinking of? Who was absent? Whose absence was he thinking of?

She sat down. "You're not cold?" she asked.

"Not at all," he said, and he walked to the table arranged for him and
sat down.

"Did you have a satisfactory day?" she asked.

"On the whole," he said slowly, "yes."

"You're not tired?" she asked.

"Not a bit," he answered. "Why should I be?" and he looked at her and
smiled.

"I don't know why you should be, Jim. I'm glad you're not. My guests
seemed to be tired, for they both went off long ago."

She was now making the first step in the direction which she must boldly
travel.

"I expect you are tired too," he said, "only--as usual--you wait up for
me."

The Warden poured himself out a cup of coffee, and took up a sandwich,
adding: "I managed to get a scrappy dinner before seven; if I had waited
longer I should have missed my train."

"We were very dull at dinner without you," she said, bringing him back
again to the point from which she was starting.

The Warden looked pleased, and then pained. Lady Dashwood was watching
him with keen tired eyes.

"We lunched at Chartcote, and then we did all that you particularly
wanted me to do," she said. "And then something rather amazing
happened--I found a letter waiting me from Belinda Scott!"

She paused. The Warden glanced at her: his face became coldly
abstracted.

"I don't mean that it was strange that she should write, but that what
she said was strange."

He glanced at her again, and she saw that he was arrested. She went on.
It seemed now easier to speak. A strange cold despair had seized her,
and with that despair a fearlessness.

"I can't help thinking that there is some mistake, because you would
have told me if--well, anything had happened to you--of consequence! You
would not have left me to be told by an--an outsider."

The Warden raised the cup of coffee to his lips, and then put it down
carefully.

"Anything that has happened," he said, "has not been communicated by me
to anybody. It did not seem to me that--there was anything that ought to
be."

Lady Dashwood waited and finding her lips would stiffen and her voice
sounded hollow, measured her words.

"Will you read Belinda's letter, and then you will see what I mean?" she
said, and she rose and held the paper out to him.

His features had grown tense and severe. He half rose, and reached out
over the table