The Trevelyan girls were withdrawing themselves as far as was physically possible from a scene.

When out leaped Miss Docker.

‘I cannot bear it!’

She began to march forward, in the direction of what Agnes Pinfold and the Trevelyans would not have dared call the hearse.

The door of their car stood open. A bee flew in, and pinned itself, a jewel of gold, to Mrs Lillie’s stifling silk.

Miss Docker butted at the air. Pointing. Calling.

When, just as suddenly as she had jumped out, the two men jumped back, in.

The cortège resumed its interrupted itinerary, Miss Docker laughing into space, for the joke was clearly against her.

‘At least I meant well,’ she called, easing, and turning, and laughing, and gulping.

As she stood for a moment alone, the empty sky cruelly distorted her already inflated figure.

What exactly happened then, Mrs Lillie had never been able to decide. Not that she had really attempted. Her instincts persuaded her that research might prove too painful.

For the door of the widow’s car had shut. Or was it slammed? Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, Mrs Lillie could not remember by whom, or how. The polite young chauffeur? Too distant. The Trevelyan sisters? Too discreet. Agnes? Too helpless. She herself, undoubtedly, would have been much too weak.

But the door had slammed.

And there, outside, was Miss Docker’s face.

‘Hey! Wait a mo!’ it called.

As the faultless young chauffeur smoothly drove.

Miss Docker, too, remembered faces. Distinctly now. In the Chinese Room at the Sundown Home. She remembered the absent expressions of the women. She remembered the widow’s chalky face, and that lipstick she had been kind enough to contribute.

But the enormous car slipped slowly out of her control. Others dared not submit to it. The other cars were gathering speed. In some case she heard a hostile grinding of metal teeth. Along the line, several drivers seized on difficult hand-brakes as an excuse for bowing their heads. So important was it to preserve a continuity.

‘Hey!’ called Miss Docker, ambling first, then running. ‘Have a heart! Mr Gartrell! Mr Custance? Mrs Fitzgibbon! Mr Galt!’

Running and running as they sped, she held her hands outstretched to catch – no longer cars, no longer people – some-thing which was escaping her.

It was curious, but, in the grip of procedure or grief, none of the faces in the procession even recognized Miss Docker. Although, it was true, all examined the object running red along the ditch.

‘Commander Clapp!’ Miss Docker cried. ‘Colonel Ogburn-Pugh! Mr Thompson! Mrs Jones! Miss Ethel Jones, Miss Dora! Mr Lickiss!’

But the cars were dedicated to a mission.

‘Mr Lickiss! For God’s sake! Mr Lickiss!’ Miss Docker did not quite whimper.

At one point she fell upon a knee, missing the jags of bottle, though tearing her stocking on an almost equally vicious stone. Then, when her surroundings had been reduced to dust and silence, and the hoarding which announced: 2 MILES TO SARSAPARILLA, THE FRIENDLY SUBURB, she began the walk back.