The Ancreds in sorrow were a formidable assembly. Pauline, Desdemona and Millamant, who were already in the dining-room, had all found black dresses to wear, and Troy was suddenly conscious that she had without thinking pulled on a scarlet sweater. She uttered those phrases of sympathy that are always inadequate. Desdemona silently gripped her hand and turned aside. Pauline dumbfounded her by bursting into tears and giving her an impulsive kiss. And it was strange to find an unsmiling and pallid Millamant. Thomas came in, looking bewildered. ‘Good morning,’ he said to Troy. ‘Isn’t it awful? I really can’t realize it a bit, you know. Everybody seems to realize it. They’re all crying and everything, but I don’t. Poor Papa.’ He looked at his sisters. ‘You’re not eating anything,’ he said. ‘What can I get you, Pauline?’

Pauline said: ‘Oh, Thomas!’ and made an eloquent gesture. ‘I suppose,’ Thomas continued, ‘that later on I shan’t want to eat anything, but at the moment I am hungry.’

He sat down beside Troy. ‘It’s lucky you finished the portrait, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Poor Papa!’

‘Tommy!’ breathed his sister.

‘Well, but it is,’ he insisted gently. ‘Papa would have been pleased too.’

Paul came in, and, a moment later, Jenetta Ancred, wearing tweeds. It was a relief to Troy that, like Thomas, neither of them spoke in special voices.

Presently Millamant began to speak of the manner in which Barker had discovered Sir Henry. At eight o’clock, it appeared, he had gone in as usual with Sir Henry’s cup of milk and water. As he approached the room he heard the cat Carabbas wailing inside, and when he opened the door it darted out and fled down the passage. Barker supposed that Sir Henry had forgotten to let his cat out, and wondered that Carabbas had not waked him.

He entered the room. It was still very dark. Barker was shortsighted, but he could make out the figure lying across the bed.

He turned on the lights, and after one horrified glance, rushed down the corridor and beat on the door of Millamant’s room. When she and Pauline answered together, he kept his head, remained outside, and, in an agitated whisper, asked Millamant if he might speak to her. She put on her dressing-gown and went out into the cold passage.

‘And I knew,’ Pauline interjected at this point. ‘Something told me. I knew at once that something had happened.’

‘Naturally,’ said Millamant. ‘Barker doesn’t go on like that every morning.’

‘I knew it was The Great Visitor,’ Pauline insisted firmly. ‘I knew.’