‘Ah, well,’ Mr Freeman said, ‘youth must be served!’ And he looked at Miss Mayfield quite tenderly, because she, too, had lost the raucous, awkward, demanding, inestimably precious thing called youth, and she, too, had survived its loss. This evening she was looking positively attractive; he’d known that she could. All she needed now was some pretty clothes. He found himself thinking of an undyed squirrel coat, soft, silver-grey. He’d read, or been told, that squirrel was not a hard-wearing fur, but what did that matter? He had plenty of money.

Good God! he said to himself, what am I thinking? At my time of life! And, of course, I should have to look very carefully into this nervous-breakdown rumour; no smoke without fire, you know; and they were definitely packing her things and could give me no address. Fishy, that.

And then he remembered the conversation they had held in the office, the trend and content of it, and the memories it had evoked of his own distant past. Something mysterious there. His curiosity, keen as a truffle-hound’s nose, began to quiver. If only something would remove the Benson girl.

He was in luck. Hardly had the thought passed through his mind when the door opened and three young people came in, a girl and two men.

‘Hullo, there!’ Miss Benson cried. She stood up, said, ‘Excuse me, won’t you,’ and went and joined them at the bar.

‘And how are things at Walwyk?’ asked Mr Freeman, settling down cosily. ‘If I remember rightly, on the day of our first meeting – to which, if I may say so, I look back with considerable pleasure – you were somewhat concerned about one of your pupils.’

It was an enormous temptation to cry, Oh, and I still am! The relief, the inexpressible relief, that it would be to tell someone the whole truth, about the accident, about Barhurst, the letters that never reached their destination, the tightrope of deception that she must walk every day. But she remembered her decision to trust no one in future. She remembered the words in Mrs Baines’s letter: ‘They’re all in it, and there’s nobody you can trust.’ Just because Mr Freeman had nice manners and lived at a little distance from Walwyk, that didn’t make him trustworthy. Indeed – and with one of the dreadful plunges into dark possibilities to which her mind had lately been prone – she thought, This whole thing might be a deep-laid plot. For just as she could trust nobody, surely They must have doubts about her trustworthiness, her complete change of attitude. They might very well have said to Miss Benson, Take her into Selbury on any excuse that offers; take her to the Club and sit down by Mr Freeman and then leave them; he’ll soon have the truth out of her.