the Fays. He won't hear of any such suggestion. Ena seemed to look on it
at first as a retribution, but Archie insists that there never was
anything to retribute. There may be two opinions about that, though,
mind you, I'm not saying so. To the best of my ability I'm letting
bygones be bygones, as I think I've shown. But Ena certainly thought so
at first, and it's my belief she does still. She's told me herself that
when they were motoring through Devon and Cornwall they never reached
their destination for the night without her being afraid of a cablegram
awaiting their arrival. She was sure something terrible was going to
happen, and knew it before they left home. I asked her in that case why
in the name of goodness they should have come, but she couldn't answer
me. Or, rather, she did answer me--just the kind of answer you'd expect
from her. It was to get some new things, and she's got them. Lovely,
some of them are, especially the dinner-gowns from Mariette's--but with
their money--_and where it comes from_--it's easy to dress. Retribution
indeed! It must be retribution enough for the poor thing just to look at
them. She's already had a woman from Jay's to talk over her mourning.
Seems heartless, doesn't it? but then, of course, she must have it.
Jay's woman had to take her measurements from the gray traveling-suit,
for the doctor won't let her get up for another week, not even to be
fitted. That will show you how far we are from sailing, and poor Archie
has changed the bookings twice.

"As for him, I can't tell, for the life of me, how he feels about being
kept here--he's so frightfully the gentleman. I've always said that he
wore good manners not as his natural face, but as a mask, and I feel it
now more than ever. It's a mask that hides even his tears, though I'm
sure, poor man, they flow fast enough beneath it. All the same, I
suspect that he finds it something of a relief to be held up here--for a
while, at any rate. He wishes he was home, and yet for some reason he's
afraid to get there. Terrible as everything is, I know he feels that it
will be more terrible still when he's on the spot."

It was in a subsequent letter that Mrs. Willoughby wrote: "I had to
scrawl so hurriedly yesterday to catch the first mail that I couldn't
begin at the beginning, or get to the point, or anything. I'll try now,
though, as for the beginning, it's like going back to the dark ages, it
all seems so long ago.

"Your first cable