nstinct was afraid of something happening within
those five days that would make the hard thing harder.

On Sunday Mrs. Cartaret's letter came. Her house, she said, was
crammed with fiends till Friday. There was a beast of a woman in
Gwenda's room who simply wouldn't go. But on Friday Gwenda's room
would be ready. It had been waiting for her all the time. Hadn't they
settled it that Gwenda was to come and live with her if things became
impossible at home? Robina supposed they _were_ impossible? She sent
her love to Alice and Mary, and she was always Gwenda's loving Mummy.
And she enclosed a five-pound note; for she was a generous soul.

On Monday Gwenda told Peacock the carrier to bring her a Bradshaw from
Reyburn.

* * * * *

She then considered how she was to account to her family for her
departure.

She decided that she would tell Mary first. And she might as well tell
her the truth while she was about it, since, if she didn't, Mary would
be sure to find it out. She was sweet and good. Not so sweet and good
that she couldn't hold her own against Papa if she was driven to
it, but sweet enough and good enough to stand by Ally and to see her
through.

It would be easy for Mary. It wasn't as if she had ever even begun to
care for Rowcliffe. It wasn't as if Rowcliffe had ever cared for her.

And she could be trusted. A secret was always safe with Mary. She was
positively uncanny in her silence, and quite superhumanly discreet.

Mary, then, should be told the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Her father should be told as much of it as he was likely to believe.
Ally, of course, mustn't have an inkling.

Mary herself had an inkling already when she appeared that evening in
the attic where Gwenda was packing a trunk. She had a new Bradshaw in
her hand.

"Peacock gave me this," said Mary. "He said you ordered it."

"So I did," said Gwenda.

"What on earth for?"

"To look up trains in."

"Why--is anybody coming?"

"Does anybody _ever_ come?"

Mary's face admitted her absurdity.

"Then"--she made it out almost with difficulty--"somebody must be
going away."

"How clever you are. Somebody _is_ going away."

Mary twisted her brows in her perplexity. She was evidently thinking
things.

"Do you mean--Steven Rowcliffe?"

"No, dear lamb." (What on earth had put Steven Rowcliffe into Mary's
head?) "It's not as bad as all that. It's only a woman. In fact, it's
only me."