ool hall. The front door
was open. She walked to it and stood under a stumpy portico, looking
out. The view was much the same as that seen from the bathroom, only
that instead of grass and flower-beds there was a gravel sweep, and,
just opposite the front door, a circle of grass with a tall
monkey-puzzle tree in the centre. Except for the faded gorgeousness of
the bedroom, the house looked like an ordinary country house, belonging
to old people who did not care to move with the times. Why should she
feel at every step a growing dread of what might meet her there?

She turned from the portico and opened, hesitatingly, the door of a room
on the opposite side of the hall. It was a drawing-room, with traces of
the same shabby gorgeousness that prevailed in the bedroom, but
mitigated by a good deal of clean, faded chintz; and at one end was a
brilliant full-length Millais portrait of Mrs. Maria Idle in blue silk
and a crinoline. It was a long room, pleasant in the dim light; for
although it had three windows, the farthest a French one and open, all
were covered with awnings, coming low down and showing nothing of the
outer world but a hand's breadth of turf and wandering bits of creeper.
It was sweet with flowers, and on a consol table before a mirror stood a
high vase from which waved and twined tall sprays and long streamers of
cluster-roses, carmine and white. It was beautiful, yet Milly turned
away from it almost with a shudder. She recognized the touch of the hand
that must have set the roses there. And the nameless horror grew upon
her.

Except for the flowers, there was little sign of occupation in the room.
A large round rosewood table was set with blue glass vases on mats and
some dozen photograph--albums and gift-books, dating from the sixties.
But on a stool in a corner lay a newspaper; and the date on it gave her
a shock. She had supposed herself to have been away about four months;
she found she had been gone sixteen. There had been plenty of time for a
misfortune to happen, and she felt convinced that it had happened. But
what? If Ian or Tony were dead she would surely still be in mourning.
Then on a little rosewood escritoire, such as ladies were wont to use
when they had nothing to write, she spied an old leather writing-case
with the initials M. B. F. upon it. It was one Aunt Beatrice had given
her when she first went to Ascham, and it seemed to look on her
pleasantly, like the face of an old friend. She fo