his hour, so we went
out and had a look round, but couldn't see her anywhere. There's not the
slightest occasion for worry."

Roger stared at him, sucking his front teeth. "But you're frightened!"
he said explosively.

"I am not."

"You are. You think she's come to some harm down on the marshes." He
slipped past him and flung open the French window, calling in a thin,
whistling voice that could not have been heard fifty yards away:
"Mummie! Mummie!"

A convulsion of rage ran through Richard. With one hand he jerked Roger
back into the room by his coat-collar, with the other he slammed the
French window. "Be quiet. I tell you she's all right. I know where she's
gone."

"Where, then?"

"Never mind."

"Where? Where?" His hands fumbled for the doorhandle again.

"Oh, stop that!" Richard loosed hold of him with the expression of one
who had grasped what he thought to be soft grass and finds his palms
scored by a fibrous stalk. He said, and Ellen could see that he liked
saying it as little as anything that he had ever said all his life long:
"If you must know, I think she's gone up to my father's tomb."

Roger shook his head solemnly. "No. You're wrong. She hasn't gone there.
And she's come to harm."

"Why in God's name do you say that?" burst out Richard.

"I know. I've known all the evening. That's really why I came back here
after the service. That talk about forgiveness was just something I made
up as an excuse. I knew quite well that something was wrong with
mummie." His pale eyes sought first Richard and then Ellen. "Don't you
believe a person might know if something happened to another person," he
asked wistfully, "if they loved them enough?"

There was indeed such an infinity of love in that weak gaze that Richard
and Ellen exchanged the abashed look that passes between lovers when it
is brought to their notice that they are not the sole practitioners of
the spiritual art. Richard murmured "Oh ... perhaps ... but really,
Roger, she was quite bright before she went out. Ellen, tell Roger...."

But Roger stared out at the empty silver garden and whimpered
inattentively: "I can't help it. I want to go down to the marshes and
look for her."

"Very well," agreed Richard, blinking. The sight of the love in those
weak eyes made his voice authentically kind. "We'll go down. She ought
to be easy to find as she's carrying a lantern. You're quite sure she
has got a lantern with her, Ellen?"

"Oh yes," said E