"Please don't." Her tone was sharp with earnestness.

Tabs felt sorry for her. She, too, like all the world was wanting the
thing that she could never have. He wondered whether it wouldn't be
kinder to tell her and let her know the worst. "But sha'n't I, Ann?"

With simple pathos, which was the more touching because it was so
unconscious, she clasped her hands, "He might come back. He was never
reported. My letters were returned unopened. I've not given over
hoping. I shouldn't like him to find that your Lordship---- If he found
another man in his place, he might feel like he hadn't been wanted. Me
and sister can manage----"

"But----"

He got no further, for her eyes were meeting his with an appeal that was
desperate. "A strange man--his ways would be different. He'd make one
know that everything--everything was ended."

She glanced hurriedly round for a last time to make sure that there was
nothing she had omitted--collar, tie, silk socks, dress-shoes,
shaving-water, razor. "I'll be listening for the bell in case there's
anything that I've forgotten, sir."

With that she closed the door between himself and her emotion. As she
rustled discreetly down the stairs, he thought he heard a sound of
sobbing.

II

It was too early to dress--not five o'clock yet. He made an estimate of
the time he had to spare. If he walked across the Park to Sir Tobias
Beddow's, that would take him from a half to three-quarters of an hour.
At the earliest he wouldn't have to leave the house till six-thirty. So
he had the best part of two hours during which to think out his line of
conduct and to dress. At dinner he would meet Terry--how would she act?
And what was the right thing for him to do as her family's trusted
friend? He felt very tired. It took a tremendous lot out of one
pretending to other people that one wasn't tired. He was ashamed to have
to own to himself how quickly nowadays he could use up his physical
reserves. For the moment there was no one to watch him; he stretched
himself out at full length on the couch.

He was glad to be back in this friendly house with its narrow stairways
and endearing littleness; it had been his American mother's before him.
Within its walls were the exquisite traces of a temperament and taste
that had been hers. She hadn't always been a great lady; to the end of
her days there had remained with her the love of small things which one
finds in nun-like New England towns. There had been