It was dated from the village where she had left her mother and Linnet. And it had been dispatched at 5.15p.m. … A quarter-past five! The hour upon the clock over the swing doors of the picture gallery! Just as she had caught sight of Louis, Linnet’s message had started trembling along a wire in the North!

A long, long time ago it seemed. Far longer than five hours. And it was the telegram that had made it so. Because the telegram had compelled action. It had visibly and in an instant transformed her life, while that other had produced nothing but emotions. Under the violence of the new compulsion, Joanna was tempted for a moment to deny the importance of the earlier event. It seemed trivial beside the face of her mother’s illness. But she was growing honest and she refused the evasion. What had happened in the picture gallery was important, but it could be left. That was all. The summons from Linnet could not wait. Their mother was ill. When had she been taken ill? He did not say. There had been no hint of illness in any letter. A week ago she had been well – particularly well. How ill was she now?

“Don’t worry,” Linnet had said, and Joanna had dwelt on that part of his message in her hurried talk with Georgie before leaving London. They all knew that Linnet was helpless in the slightest case of illness at home. How much more so, away there in that remote village, and under such primitive conditions. It was natural that he should send for one of his sisters. And Georgie was not in a state to travel.

She was not to worry. Linnet had expressly said so. But Joanna lay awake all night in the train and knew that there was no hope. Linnet, when he telegraphed, had not known that there was no hope. She was sure of that. His telegram had told her what he himself did not or would not know.

Though she could not sleep, she lay down, trying to rest. The day had told upon her in an aching fatigue, and she must save the strength that remained for what was coming. Towards morning she slept a very little.

In Glasgow she found there was a coast train she might catch with a rush, and a later one which would give her time for some tea and a wash. “Don’t worry,” Linnet had said. But Joanna raced for the first train, and scrambled into it as it was moving.

On the steamer she swallowed some breakfast, though the thick, round oaten biscuits, which in childhood she had enjoyed, were as sawdust in her mouth. It was a rough, bright crossing. There was a band, to which the plunging paddle seemed to keep time and all the white, churned wake to dance. Everything recalled the unforgettable journeys of childhood … with piles of luggage, baths with straps round them, perambulators, bags of biscuits for the seagulls … their father pacing the deck springily, laughing with the wind in his beard … their mother falling asleep in a sheltered corner with a tired, happy face. But now all the blown people on the deck looked like ghosts.