Innocent middle-aged ladies on operating tables babbling words they hardly knew. Little boys chalking up things on walls.

No, no, not Megan.

Heredity? Bad blood? An unconscious inheritance of something abnormal? Her misfortune, not her fault, a curse laid upon her by a past generation?

“I’m not the wife for you. I’m better at hating than loving.”

Oh, my Megan, my little child. Not that! Anything but that. And that old Tabby is after you, she suspects. She says you have courage. Courage to do what?

It was only a brainstorm. It passed. But I wanted to see Megan— I wanted to see her badly.

At half past nine that night I left the house and went down to the town and along to the Symmingtons.’

It was then that an entirely new idea came into my mind. The idea of a woman whom nobody had considered for a moment.

(Or had Nash considered her?)

Wildly unlikely, wildly improbable, and I would have said up to today impossible, too. But that was not so. No, not impossible.

I redoubled my pace. Because it was now even more imperative that I should see Megan straightaway.

I passed through the Symmingtons’ gate and up to the house. It was a dark overcast night. A little rain was beginning to fall. The visibility was bad.

I saw a line of light from one of the windows. The little morning room?

I hesitated a moment or two, then instead of going up to the front door, I swerved and crept very quietly up to the window, skirting a big bush and keeping low.

The light came from a chink in the curtains which were not quite drawn. It was easy to look through and see.

It was a strangely peaceful and domestic scene. Symmington in a big armchair, and Elsie Holland, her head bent, busily patching a boy’s torn shirt.

I could hear as well as see for the window was open at the top.

Elsie Holland was speaking.

“But I do think, really, Mr. Symmington, that the boys are quite old enough to go to boarding school. Not that I shan’t hate leaving them because I shall. I’m ever so fond of them both.”

Symmington said: “I think perhaps you’re right about Brian, Miss Holland. I’ve decided that he shall start next term at Winhays—my old prep school. But Colin is a little young yet. I’d prefer him to wait another year.”

“Well of course I see what you mean. And Colin is perhaps a little young for his age—”

Quiet domestic talk—quiet domestic scene—and a golden head bent over needlework.

Then the door opened and Megan came in.