oom dwindled to
disconnected remarks, and was kept alive by a series of separate little
efforts. Footsteps were no longer audible overhead. The clock on the
mantelpiece struck five, emphasising a silence, and amid growing
constraint several minutes passed. Leonora wanted to suggest that John,
having lost the dog, must have been delayed by looking for him, but she
felt that she could not infuse sufficient conviction into the remark,
and so said nothing. A thousand fears and misgivings took possession of
her, and, not for the first time, she seemed to discern in the gloom of
the future some great catastrophe which would swallow up all that was
precious to her.

At length John came in, hurried, fidgetty, nervous, and Ethel slipped
out of the room.

'Ah! Twemlow!' he broke forth, 'how d'ye do? How d'ye do? Glad to see
you. Hadn't given me up, had you? How d'ye do?'

'Not quite,' said Twemlow gravely as they shook hands.

Leonora took the water-jug from the tray and went to a chrysanthemum in
the farthest corner of the room, where she remained listening, and
pretending to be busy with the plant. The men talked freely but vapidly
with the most careful politeness, and it seemed to her that Twemlow was
annoyed, while Stanway was determined to offer no explanation of his
absence from tea. Once, in a pause, John turned to Leonora and said that
he had been upstairs to see Rose. Leonora was surprised at the change in
Twemlow's demeanour. It was as though the pair were fighting a duel and
Twemlow wore a coat of mail. 'And these two have not seen each other for
twenty-five years!' she thought. 'And they talk like this!' She knew
then that something lay between them; she could tell from a peculiar
well-known look in her husband's eyes.

When she summoned decision to approach them where they stood side by
side on the hearthrug, both tall, big, formal, and preoccupied, Twemlow
at once said that unfortunately he must go; Stanway made none but the
merest perfunctory attempt to detain him. He thanked Leonora stiffly for
her hospitality, and said good-bye with scarcely a smile. But as John
opened the door for him to pass out, he turned to glance at her, and
smiled brightly, kindly, bowing a final adieu, to which she responded.
She who never in her life till then had condescended to such a device
softly stepped to the unlatched door and listened.

'This one yours?' she heard John say, and then the sound of a hat
bouncing on the tiled