She could not have done without Muffin these days. You could talk to him and he listened in a wise, receptive silence, without arguing.

So they saw Aunt Effie off in the car for Wells, with Bella on the seat beside her behaving like a lady, and then they burgled her dressing-table for more hairpins.

An hour later Sabrina was still on her knees outside Hilary’s door, hot and discouraged. The lock would not give. Hilary was sitting on the top step, and Muffin lay on his back slapping at the air with soft, ineffectual paws and giggling as kittens can—for he was being deliciously tickled in the ribs by Hilary’s invisible fingers, and loving it. The roses were wilting on the floor nearby.

“I suppose it was only an accident the first time,” she sighed, pushing back her hair with a grimy hand. “I can never do it again. Muffin, you are an idiot, can’t you suggest something?”

She stopped to listen guiltily, motionless, her head turned over her shoulder towards the stairs. Someone was coming up.

“Ah,” said Hilary with satisfaction. “And about time too.”

It was Mrs. Pilton. Sabrina, already flushed and rumpled with her failure at the lock, got still redder.

“I—I only wanted to air out the room a bit—” she began inadequately, and broke off, staring at the key in the housekeeper’s outstretched hand. “Oh, Mrs. Pilton, it is nice of you!” She scrambled to her feet and took the key, and then, bending from the top step, put her arms round the woman’s shoulders and kissed her cheek. “I can never thank you enough!”

“I may be wrong to let you have it,” said Mrs. Pilton. “But he doesn’t want you to be shut out.”

“Oh—how do you know?” gasped Sabrina.

“It’s hard to say, sometimes, how you know things.” Mrs. Pilton turned back down the stairs. “I’ll bring you up a cup of tea, if you like,” she said.

“Thank you, that would be lovely!” Sabrina caught up Muffin and the drooping roses. “How things come about!” she marveled, as the key turned in the lock and the door swung back under her eager hand. “I’ve always imagined having tea with him, and now—”

The words died on her lips. For a moment she seemed about to cry out after Mrs. Pilton.

She herself had seen George at the window drawing the curtains while the dust-sheets glimmered eerily in the sudden twilight. But now sunshine flooded the window seat as usual and the shrouds had all been removed from the furniture and laid in a neatly folded pile in the corner.

“Sorry,” said Hilary with real contrition. “My first mistake.”