e for a short time, was he not? What do you think he
would have done now that this terrible war has come?"

"He would have done what you will do," she answered, with the slightest
possible tremor in her tone. "He would have become a soldier again, he
would have fought for his country."

"And so must I--fight for my country," he declared. "That is why I must
leave you for an hour now while I make some calls. I shall be back
to luncheon. Directly afterwards we must start. I have many things to
arrange first, though. Life is not going to be very easy for the next
few days."

She held on to his arm. She seemed curiously reluctant to let him go.

"Everard," she said, "when we are at Dominey shall I be able to see
Doctor Harrison?"

"Of course," he assured her.

"There is something I want to say to him," she confided, "something I
want to ask you, too. Are you the same person, Everard, when you are in
town as when you are in the country?"

He was a little taken aback at her question--asked, too, with such
almost plaintive seriousness. The very aberration it suggested seemed
altogether denied by her appearance. She was wearing a dress of black
and white muslin, a large black hat, Paris shoes. Her stockings, her
gloves, all the trifling details of her toilette, were carefully chosen,
and her clothes themselves gracefully and naturally worn. Socially, too,
she had been amazingly successful. Only the week before, Caroline had
come to him with a little shrug of the shoulders.

"I have been trying to be kind to Rosamund," she said, "and finding
out instead how unnecessary it is. She is quite the most popular of the
younger married women in our set. You don't deserve such luck, Everard."

"You know the proverb about the old roue," he had replied.

His mind had wandered for a moment. He realised Rosamund's question with
a little start.

"The same person, dear?" he repeated. "I think so. Don't I seem so to
you?"

She shook her head.

"I am not sure," she answered, a little mysteriously. "You see, in the
country I still remember sometimes that awful night when I so nearly
lost my reason. I have never seen you as you looked that night."

"You would rather not go back, perhaps?"

"That is the strange part of it," she replied. "There is nothing in the
world I want so much to do. There's an empty taxi, dear," she added,
as they reached the gate. "I shall go in and tell Justine about the
packing."

CHAPTER XXVIII