‘Sure it was her?’

‘Oh! yes, you see—she’s very beautiful . . .’ He paused, and then added: ‘I shall have the old op, of course—but—but in case my number should be up—’

‘Rot!’

‘Of course it’s rot. But all the same I’m glad I told you about this gipsy business . . . You know, there’s more of it if only I could remember . . .’

Macfarlane walked up the steep moorland road. He turned in at the gate of the house near the crest of the hill. Setting his jaw squarely, he pulled the bell.

‘Is Mrs Haworth in?’

‘Yes, sir. I’ll tell her.’ The maid left him in a low long room, with windows that gave on the wildness of the moorland. He frowned a little. Was he making a colossal ass of himself?

Then he started. A low voice was singing overhead:

‘The gipsy woman

Lives on the moor—’

The voice broke off. Macfarlane’s heart beat a shade faster. The door opened.

The bewildering, almost Scandinavian fairness of her came as a shock. In spite of Dickie’s description, he had imagined her gipsy dark . . . And he suddenly remembered Dickie’s words, and the peculiar tone of them. ‘You see, she’s very beautiful . . .’ Perfect unquestionable beauty is rare, and perfect unquestionable beauty was what Alistair Haworth possessed.

He caught himself up, and advanced towards her. ‘I’m afraid you don’t know me from Adam. I got your address from the Lawes. But—I’m a friend of Dickie Carpenter’s.’

She looked at him closely for a minute or two. Then she said: ‘I was going out. Up on the moor. Will you come too?’

She pushed open the window, and stepped out on the hillside. He followed her. A heavy, rather foolish-looking man was sitting in a basket-chair smoking.

‘My husband! We’re going out on the moor, Maurice. And then Mr Macfarlane will come back to lunch with us. You will, won’t you?’

‘Thanks very much.’ He followed her easy stride up the hill, and thought to himself: ‘Why? Why, on God’s earth, marry that?’

Alistair made her way to some rocks. ‘We’ll sit here. And you shall tell me—what you came to tell me.’

‘You knew?’

‘I always know when bad things are coming. It is bad, isn’t it? About Dickie?’

‘He underwent a slight operation—quite successfully. But his heart must have been weak. He died under the anaesthetic.’

What he expected to see on her face, he scarcely knew—hardly that look of utter eternal weariness . . . He heard her murmur: ‘Again—to wait—so long—so long . . .’ She looked up: ‘Yes, what were you going to say?’

‘Only this. Someone warned him against this operation. A nurse. He thought it was you. Was it?’

She shook her head. ‘No, it wasn’t me. But I’ve got a cousin who is a nurse. She’s rather like me in a dim light. I dare say that was it.’ She looked up at him again. ‘It doesn’t matter, does it?’ And then suddenly her eyes widened. She drew in her breath. ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Oh! How funny! You don’t understand . . .’