FOR the next few days she went about much the same as usual, a little too quiet, with shadows under her eyes. The time she had habitually spent in Hilary’s room she spent in her own, reading her own books; or sometimes just sitting on her window seat looking down into the garden. But she did not cry any more, and Aunt Effie assured herself hopefully that it was only a phase, and that it was passing.

Meanwhile, somewhat belatedly, Aunt Effie arranged for the adoption of a kitten out of a family in the barn at the farm where the eggs came from. Muffin was his name, and he was very small and black and intelligent, and selected Sabrina at once as his sole owner in all the household.

At last on a day when loneliness enveloped her like a fog, as night came on she went and sat on the top step of the second flight of stairs, her arms clasped round her knees and her head resting on them. Hilary, imprisoned behind the locked door, had heard her coming up the stairs, and guessed how she sat there on the steps, as near to him as she could get, pathetically alone.

As the sun went down he heard her being called to dinner, and knew that she went unwillingly, drooping, with reluctant feet. Fuming at his own helplessness to put things right for her, presumably by knocking Aunt Effie’s head against the wall till she saw reason, Hilary paced the floor restlessly, while shadows crept in towards the house from the drowsing garden, and panels of light spread outwards across the grass from uncurtained windows on the ground floor, for the night was sultry and everything stood open to catch a breeze.

Thunder muttered among the hills, and lightning glimmered sullenly now and then, but the storm held off and night fell with an almost audible thud, engulfing everything in thick darkness without a leaf stirring. Headache weather, he thought, standing idly at a window in his unlighted room after deciding there was no possible way down the outside wall short of climbing on the sill and jumping into space—and somehow he didn’t feel quite up to that, not tonight. Anyway, even if he got out, Sabrina still couldn’t get in, unless he contrived to find and steal the key, which was bound to make talk. Even if he unlocked the door for her, how would she know....

The poor kid will go off to bed early with a book if she’s wise, he thought. I wonder what she’s reading now, all by herself. Well, make up your mind, Shenstone, what are we going to do about this, it can’t go on indefinitely....