Lynn shifted from one foot to the other.

"What did you mean, Mums, when you said - that first morning I was home - 'If he is her brother?'"

"Oh, that," Mrs Marchmont looked slightly embarrassed. "Well, there's been a certain amount of gossip, you know."

Lynn merely waited inquiringly. Mrs Marchmont coughed.

"That type of young woman - the adventuress type (of course poor Gordon was completely taken in) they've usually got a - well, a young man of their own in the background. Suppose she says to Gordon she's got a brother - wires to him in Canada or wherever he was. This man turns up. How is Gordon to know whether he's her brother or not?

Poor Gordon, absolutely infatuated no doubt, and believing everything she said. And so her 'brother' comes with them to England - poor Gordon quite unsuspecting."

Lynn said fiercely:

"I don't believe it. I don't believe it!"

Mrs Marchmont raised her eyebrows.

"Really, my dear -"

"He's not like that. And she - she isn't either. She's a fool perhaps, but she's sweet - yes, she's really sweet. It's just people's foul minds. I don't believe it, I tell you."

Mrs Marchmont said with dignity:

"There's really no need to shout"

Chapter 8

It was a week later that the 5.20 train drew into Warmsley Heath Station and a tall bronzed man with a knapsack got out.

On the opposite platform a cluster of golfers were waiting for the up train. The tall bearded man with the knapsack gave up his ticket and passed out of the station.

He stood uncertainly for a minute or two - then he saw the signpost: Footpath to Warmsley Vale - and directed his steps that way with brisk determination.

At Long Willows Rowley Cloade had just finished making himself a cup of tea when a shadow falling across the kitchen table made him look up.

If for just a moment he thought the girl standing just inside the door was Lynn, his disappointment turned to surprise when he saw it was Rosaleen Cloade.

She was wearing a frock of some peasant material in bright broad stripes of orange and green - the artificial simplicity of which had run into more money than Rowley could ever have imagined possible.

Up to now he had always seen her dressed in expensive and somewhat towny clothes which she wore with an artificial air - much, he had thought, as a mannequin might display dresses that did not belong to her but to the firm who employed her.

This afternoon in the broad peasant stripes of gay colour, he seemed to see a new Rosaleen Cloade. Her Irish origin was more noticeable, the dark curling hair and the lovely blue eyes put in with the smutty finger. Her voice, too, had a softer Irish sound instead of the careful rather mincing tones in which she usually spoke.

"It's such a lovely afternoon," she said. "So I came for a walk."