Like many people who are ill Lady Caversham had a habit of dropping off almost immediately when she went to bed, only to awaken two or three hours later and find it impossible to sleep again.

To be disturbed early in the evening was disastrous, for that meant she would often have what was described as a ‘white night’ and in the morning would seem so frail that Thalia would be apprehensive.

‘I must go down to him,’ she thought.

She took from the wardrobe a long cloak that her mother had worn in the days when they were more affluent.

It was of velvet in a deep Madonna blue and had once been trimmed with sable before Thalia had sold the fur because it had provided them with something to eat.

It was simple and hung over her shoulders, making her with the strange colour of her hair appear as if she had stepped out of a stained-glass window.

To herself she merely looked somewhat underdressed, but she thought if the Earl was ashamed of her, there was nothing she could do about it.

She tiptoed very quietly down the stairs and went into the kitchen.

Hannah looked at her and her face darkened.

“What’s the world comin’ to, that’s what I’d like to know!” she said. “He’s no right to ask you out alone. You know that!”

“I do know it, Hannah,” Thalia answered, “but what else could I do? I could not have him upset Mama.”

“I suppose you could have insisted that I came with you,” Hannah said grudgingly.

Just for a moment Thalia thought that it would be amusing to see the Earl’s reaction to this request.

Then she said aloud,

“That is what I would like to do, but supposing Mama should wake and find nobody in the house?”

“I only hopes as you can manage a man like his Lordship,” Hannah said grimly, “but I doubts it.”

Thalia rather doubted it too, but she asked herself what was the alternative.

Hannah gave a sudden cry.

“What is it?” Thalia asked.

“I’ve an idea! I’ve an idea, Miss Thalia! Just you wait here.”

As she spoke, she went from the kitchen down the stairs that led to the cellar.

Thalia looked after her in perplexity.

There was nothing in the cellar she knew except for the trunks they had brought with them from the country, a number of which belonged to her father and contained his clothes.

When they had unpacked, there had been nowhere to put his things in so small a house and Hannah therefore took them to the cellar to unpack them from time to time to make certain that they were not being spoilt by damp or moths.

Thalia waited, aware that the Earl was waiting too and doubtless growing more and more impatient.

Then Hannah came heavily up the narrow staircase from the cellar.