“I suppose—Auntie—marriage is always—rather a— plunge in the dark?”

“Nonsense, child!” Miss Arden said briskly. “What on earth do you mean?”

“Only that—it’s difficult to know—can one possibly know—what a man is really like—before one marries him? I mean—one doesn’t know anyone—properly—till one has lived in the same house with them. And—and wouldn’t it be—rather dreadful—if after all—it turned out that one had made a mistake?”

“My dear Elizabeth, you’re getting morbid,” Miss Arden said flatly. “You’ve been mooning about indoors too much, and reading silly books.”

Elizabeth’s fingers gripped together till the knuckles shone white.

“Aunt Anne—I don’t believe I know—quite what—it will mean.”

Miss Arden knitted faster than ever, and did not look at Elizabeth.

“The best thing you can do, my dear, is to go for a brisk walk in the Park,” she said repressively. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Elizabeth got up, and stood for a moment looking down at Miss Arden.

“Oughtn’t I to know?” she said quietly.

“My dear Elizabeth, you can take it from me that if you love your husband all these silly fancies of yours are groundless. Now run along and put your hat on.”

Elizabeth went slowly out of the room. For the first time in her life a great regret took possession of her, and a great want.

“I wish my mother hadn’t died.”

She had never felt this want before, but now it entered deep into her soul and told her that she was lonely and helpless, lacking a guiding hand. Aunt Anne became suddenly useless and apart from her, Lawrence a stranger. She felt that she stood alone and that there was no one to help or to advise her. Dimly, subconsciously she knew that Aunt Anne was no more to her than Lawrence, a creature who loved her but did not know her, whom she did not know.

It was in this mood that Stephen found her, alone in the drawing-room.

He came unannounced into the room, quickly as always, and shut the door behind him with a little, decided click.

Elizabeth was sitting in a big chair beside the fire, with an open book on her knees. She was not reading, but looking wistfully down into the fire; her mouth drooped, her eyes were laden with shadows. She did not turn because she thought it was only the parlour-maid who had come to set out the table for tea, and for a moment Stephen stood quite still with his hand still on the door-knob, watching her.

Then, wondering, she raised her head, and he saw a tinge of colour creep into her cheeks.