‘It is better,’ Anelida said, and, after a moment: ‘Mightn’t one say that he brought about his own retribution?’ She turned to Richard and was visited by a feeling of great tenderness and strength. ‘We’ll cope,’ she said, ‘with the future. Won’t we?’

‘I believe we will, darling,’ Richard said. ‘We must, mustn’t we?’

Alleyn said: ‘You’ve suffered a great shock and will feel it for some time. It’s happened and can’t be forgotten. But the hurt will grow less.’

He saw that Richard was not listening to him. He had his arm about Anelida and had turned her towards him.

‘You’ll do,’ Alleyn said, unheeded.

He went up to Anelida and took her hand. ‘True,’ he said. ‘Believe me. He’ll be all right. To my mind he has nothing to blame himself for. And that,’ Alleyn said, ‘is generally allowed to be a great consolation. Goodnight.’

V

Miss Bellamy’s funeral was everything that she would have wished.

All the Knights and Dames, of course, and The Management and Timon Gantry who had so often directed her. Bertie Saracen who had created her dresses since the days when she was a bit-part actress. Pinky Cavendish in floods, and Maurice, very Guardee, with a stiff upper lip.

Quite insignificant people, too: her Old Ninn with a face like a boot and Florence with a bunch of primroses. Crowds of people whom she herself would have scarcely remembered, but upon whom, as a columnist in a woman’s magazine put it, she had at some time bestowed the gift of her charm. And it was not for her fame, the celebrated clergyman pointed out in his address, that they had come to say goodbye to her. It was, quite simply, because they had loved her.

And Richard Dakers was there, very white and withdrawn, with a slim, intelligent-looking girl beside him.

Everybody.

Except, of course, her husband. It was extraordinary how little he was missed. The lady columnist could not, for the life of her, remember his name.

Charles Templeton had, as he would have wished, a private funeral.

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