----" began Diva.

"Yes, dear, the note on Captain Puffin's table to his housekeeper said
he was called away suddenly. What called him away? Cowardice, dear! How
ignoble it all is. And we've all been thinking how brave and wonderful
they were. They fled from each other, and came back together and played
golf. I never thought it was a game for men. The sand-dunes where they
were supposed to be fighting! They might lose a ball there, but that
would be the utmost. Not a life. Poor Padre! Going out there to stop a
duel, and only finding a game of golf. But I understand the nature of
men better now. What an eye-opener!"

Diva by this time was trundling away round the room, and longing to be
off in order to tell everybody. She could find no hole in Elizabeth's
arguments; it was founded as solidly as a Euclidean proposition.

"Ever occurred to you that they drink?" she asked. "Believe in Roman
roads and diaries? I don't."

Miss Mapp bounded from her chair. Danger flags flapped and crimsoned in
her face. What if Diva went flying round Tilling, suggesting that in
addition to being cowards those two men were drunkards? They would, as
soon as any hint of the further exposure reached them, conclude that she
had set the idea on foot, and then----

"No, Diva darling," she said, "don't dream of imagining such a thing. So
dangerous to hint anything of the sort. Cowards they may be, and indeed
are, but never have I seen anything that leads me to suppose that they
drink. We must give them their due, and stick to what we know; we must
not launch accusations wildly about other matters, just because we know
they are cowards. A coward need not be a drunkard, thank God! It is all
miserable enough, as it is!"

Having averted this danger, Miss Mapp, with her radiant, excited face,
seemed to be bearing all the misery very courageously, and as Diva could
no longer be restrained from starting on her morning round they plunged
together into the maelstrom of the High Street, riding and whirling in
its waters with the solution of the portmanteau and the early train for
life-buoy. Very little shopping was done that morning, for every
permutation and combination of Tilling society (with the exception, of
course, of the cowards) had to be formed on the pavement with a view to
the amplest possible discussion. Diva, as might have been expected, gave
proof of her accustomed perfidy before long, for she certainly gave
the Padre to understand that the