chless and insane. She lay on her back,
her face white like a piece of paper, her dark eyes staring at the
ceiling, her awful immobility broken by sudden shivering fits with a
loud chattering of teeth in the shadowy silence of the room, the blinds
pulled down, Mrs Fyne sitting by patiently, her arms folded, yet
inwardly moved by the riddle of that distress of which she could not
guess the word, and saying to herself: "That child is too emotional--
much too emotional to be ever really sound!" As if anyone not made of
stone could be perfectly sound in this world. And then how sound? In
what sense--to resist what? Force or corruption? And even in the best
armour of steel there are joints a treacherous stroke can always find if
chance gives the opportunity.

General considerations never had the power to trouble Mrs Fyne much.
The girl not being in a state to be questioned she waited by the
bedside. Fyne had crossed over to the house, his scruples overcome by
his anxiety to discover what really had happened. He did not have to
lift the knocker; the door stood open on the inside gloom of the hall;
he walked into it and saw no one about, the servants having assembled
for a fatuous consultation in the basement. Fyne's uplifted bass voice
startled them down there, the butler coming up, staring and in his shirt
sleeves, very suspicious at first, and then, on Fyne's explanation that
he was the husband of a lady who had called several times at the house--
Miss de Barral's mother's friend--becoming humanely concerned and
communicative, in a man to man tone, but preserving his trained
high-class servant's voice: "Oh bless you, sir, no! She does not mean
to come back. She told me so herself"--he assured Fyne with a faint
shade of contempt creeping into his tone.

As regards their young lady nobody downstairs had any idea that she had
run out of the house. He dared say they all would have been willing to
do their very best for her, for the time being; but since she was now
with her mother's friends ...

He fidgeted. He murmured that all this was very unexpected. He wanted
to know what he had better do with letters or telegrams which might
arrive in the course of the day.

"Letters addressed to Miss de Barral, you had better bring over to my
hotel over there," said Fyne beginning to feel extremely worried about
the future. The man said "Yes, sir," adding, "and if a letter comes
addressed to Mrs.."

Fyne stopped him