‘Dear thing!’ she said. ‘What a lovely appetite you have for details! You might as well expect me to remember what I had for breakfast that morning. She and I had both gone into the kitchen; there we were, and we were looking at the Christmas tree. Such a tawdry tinselly tree! Rather like her. Then the flood poured in, and I saw that our only chance was to embark on the kitchen table. By the way, was it ever washed up?’

‘Oh yes, without a scratch on it,’ said Diva, thinking of the battering it was supposed to have undergone against the side of the trawler…

Elizabeth had evidently not reckoned on its having come ashore, and rose.

‘I am surprised that it didn’t go to bits,’ she said. ‘But let us go into the garden-room. We must really talk about that wretched sponger next door. Is it true he’s bought a motorcar out of the money he hoped my death would bring him? And all that wine: bottles and bottles, so Withers told me. Oceans of champagne. How is he to pay for it all now with his miserable little income on which he used to pinch and scrape along before?’

‘That’s what nobody knows,’ said Diva. ‘An awful crash for him. So rash and hasty, as we all felt.’

They settled themselves comfortably by the fire, after Elizabeth had had one peep between the curtains.

‘I’m not the least sorry for having been a little severe with him this morning,’ she said. ‘Any woman would have done the same.’

Withers entered with a note. Elizabeth glanced at the handwriting, and turned pale beneath the tan acquired on the cod-banks.

‘From him,’ she said. ‘No answer, Withers.’

‘Shall I read it?’ said Elizabeth, when Withers had left the room, ‘or throw it, as it deserves, straight into the fire.’

‘Oh, read it,’ said Diva, longing to know what was in it. ‘You must see what he has to say for himself.’

Elizabeth adjusted her pince-nez and read it in silence.

‘Poor wretch,’ she said. ‘But very proper as far as it goes. Shall I read it you?’

‘Do, do, do,’ said Diva.

Elizabeth read:

My Dear Miss Elizabeth (if you will still permit me to call you so) –

‘Very proper,’ said Diva.

‘Don’t interrupt, dear, or I shan’t read it,’ said Elizabeth.

– call you so. I want first of all to congratulate you with all my heart on your return after adventures and privations which I know you bore with Christian courage.

Secondly I want to tender you my most humble apologies for my atrocious conduct in your absence, which was unworthy of a soldier and Christian, and, in spite of all, a gentleman. Your forgiveness, should you be so gracious as to extend it to me, will much mitigate my present situation.

Most sincerely yours (if you will allow me to say so),

Benjamin Flint