More than fifteen months had elapsed since we had reluctantly seen her
into the boat-train at Euston and wished her a safe journey to her
American home. At the time, with an uneasiness bred of experience, I had
wondered whether our friendship was to survive the battery of time and
distance, or whether it was destined to slip into a decline and so,
presently, out of our lives, fainting and painless. Touch, however, had
been maintained by a fitful correspondence, and constant references to
Miss Feste's promised visit to White Ladies--a consummation which we one
and all desired--were made for what they were worth. Finally my sister
sat down and issued a desperate summons. "My dear, don't keep us waiting
any longer. Arrive in August and stay for six months. If you don't, we
shall begin to believe what we already suspect--that we live too far
away." The thrust went home. Within a month the invitation had been
accepted, with the direct result that here were Jill and I, at six
o'clock of a pleasant August evening, standing upon a quay at
Southampton, while the Rolls waited patiently, with Fitch at her wheel,
a stone's throw away, ready to rush our guest and ourselves over the odd
fifteen miles that lay between the port and White Ladies.

With us in the car we could take the inevitable cabin trunk and
dressing-case. Adele's heavy baggage was to be consigned to the care of
Fitch, who would bring it by rail the same evening to Mockery Dale, the
little wayside station which served five villages and our own among
them.

Nobody from the quay was allowed to board the liner, and none of the
passengers were allowed to disembark, until the baggage had been
off-loaded. For the best part, therefore, of an hour and a half Jill and
I hovered under the shadow of the tall ship, walking self-consciously up
and down, or standing looking up at the promenade deck with, so far as I
was concerned, an impotently fatuous air and, occasionally, the
meretricious leer usually reserved for the photographer's studio.

At last--

"If they don't let them off soon," I announced, "I shall break down. The
strain of being cordial with somebody who's in sight, but out of
earshot, is becoming unbearable. Let's go and have a breather behind the
hutment." And I indicated an erection which looked like a ticket-office
that had been thrown together during the Crimean War.

But Jill was inexorable.

"It can't be long now," she argued, "and if we go away----The