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“Your aunt—” John interrupted with a faint gleam of interest. “Just what is her job—and yours?”

“She runs a very exclusive dress salon,” Rosamund told him. “And she was training me to take her place later on.”

“Ah, now I remember!” he exclaimed. “I was sure I’d seen you somewhere before! I got dragged to a dress show and you were modelling some of the clothes. I didn’t remember your face—it was the way you walked that stayed in my mind.”

“Yes, I did some modelling,” Rosamund agreed. “But not lately. I’ve been understudying Aunt Ruth—seeing clients and helping them make their choice.”

“It doesn’t sound very onerous,” John remarked with a shrug.

“It can, in fact, be very tiring, particularly with clients who can’t make up their minds. But it wasn’t just that. It was—oh, the whole atmosphere! The triviality of it all— the sort of women I had to deal with—greedy and shallow—”

“And rich?” John suggested drily. “I suppose, in fact, you were jealous of them!”

“No.” She shook her head. “Not that. Just—exhausted by it. All I wanted was to get away from it all and make a fresh start. I tried to make Aunt Ruth understand, but it wasn’t any good, so in the end I just walked out.”

“And what’s the moral of this pathetic little tale?” John asked sardonically.

“Just that—because of the way I had felt, I guessed that for some reason or other, you’d felt the same way,” she explained. Then, with sudden impatience, she caught him by the arm and shook it.

“Oh, John, don’t shut your mind against me! Please, please believe me ! ”

He looked at her with lacklustre eyes.

“You know, I almost might—but for one thing,” he said slowly.

“What?” Rosamund asked eagerly.

“There’s altogether too much coincidence about the whole thing!”

“Coincidence?” Rosamund repeated. “But coincidences do happen!”

“Oh, to be sure they do,” he agreed. “But when they come as thick and fast as all this—well, really, you can hardly wonder if my credulity is strained to breaking point!”

“What coincidence?” Rosamund challenged.

“Oh, must we? All right, if you insist! Coincidence number one—” he ticked off on one finger. “You just
happened
to choose
my
boat for your opening gambit although there were two others to choose from—”

“Yours was nearest to the gate,” Rosamund reminded him.

“So it was! All right, we’ll let that go. However, number two—you tell me that you ran away from your aunt, by which I presume you mean me to understand that you didn’t tell her where you were going. Right? Then how do you explain that she found you with apparently little difficulty?”

“I don’t know,” Rosamund admitted flatly. “I asked her, but she wouldn’t tell me.”

“But to me it’s perfectly understandable,” John told her, his lips curling derisively. “Your aunt’s visit was all part of the scheme—a put-up job. The idea was to convince me that you were in trouble.”

Something snapped in Rosamund’s mind.

“I think Aunt Ruth put it rather better in her letter,” she said in a brittle voice.
“She
referred to me as a damsel in distress and you as a knight errant! ”

Again the muscle twitched at John’s mouth.

“Ah yes, that letter! It should make interesting reading ! Let me see it—it might even convince me that you’re telling the truth!”

“I can’t,” Rosamund said miserably. “I burnt it.”

“What a pity!” John mocked. “Your one piece of evidence—and you destroy it!”

“John, stop it! Stop it at once and listen to me!” In sheer desperation, Rosamund stamped her foot in its pretty silver-buckled shoe.

Her peremptoriness startled him, for she saw that though his eyes were still hostile, she had at least gained his whole attention.

Time seemed to stand still and to Rosamund it seemed as though her brain had stopped working as well. What could she say to him that she hadn’t already said—what was there left that would convince him?

Then, as if she was listening to someone else speaking, she heard her own voice saying very clearly and deliberately as one might speak to a little child or a sick person: “John, I’m not going to defend myself any more, because it’s no good—it only makes you doubt me all the more. I’m just going to tell you one thing. I married you because I loved you. For no other reason. And I shall go on loving you, whether you can believe it or not. That’s all!”

She turned away blindly from him and got into the car to sit very still, staring straight in front of her.

For what seemed like an eternity John stood motionless. Then with a sudden, violent movement, he tore the photograph he still held into fragments and flung them from him. Then, grim-faced, he walked round to his side of the car, got in and started up.

It was a silent journey and if John drove with a sort of determined recklessness, Rosamund was hardly aware of it. She had a strange sensation of utter emptiness as if all thought, all feeling, had been blotted out. She wasn’t herself any more. She was just the hollow husk of a girl who, so short a time ago, had experienced the fullness of life.

And John? She had no idea what his thoughts were and, strangely, little curiosity. She knew now that what she had previously only partly sensed was true. Before he had ever met her, some experience had so poisoned his mind that he had lost faith in
himself.
That was the real trouble and that was why -he couldn’t believe that her love for him was genuine. Nor could it be otherwise until, somehow, the poison was expelled. And that was something that John must do for himself. There was no way in which she could help—except, of course, to go on loving him—

Quite suddenly she was stirred from the grey mist that enveloped her.

“John, aren’t we going in the wrong direction?” she asked warningly. “Too far south?”

“We would be—if we were going back to the
Seven Stars
,” he agreed. “But we’re not.”

“Not going—” she faltered uncertainly.

“No. You see, I seem to remember that, not so very long ago, I promised to endow you with all my worldly goods—”

“Oh, John !” she protested despairingly.

“So,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken, “why shouldn’t I start doing that right away? We’re going to Lindacres which, in case you’ve forgotten, is the house that my father built in Hampshire some ten years ago. You’ll like it, I’m sure. It’s built in the grand style— practically every bedroom has its own bathroom, there’s a ballroom, two swimming pools, one under cover, and magnificent gardens and hothouses. Father used to use it for his really big parties—”

He went on talking, but what he said made no impression on Rosamund. One thought only echoed and reechoed in her numbed brain.

She had failed, utterly, hopelessly. Failed to regain John’s trust, failed even to persuade him to give her a chance and so failed in her battle to give their marriage any hope of fulfilment.

“You’re not very enthusiastic!” John’s reproachful voice cut through her nightmare. “Would you perhaps rather go up to my—sorry,
our
—London flat? Or the villa at Cannes? Or perhaps a cruise? That might take a little time to organise, but it wouldn’t really matter, would it? You could spend the time buying clothes—”

Rosamund’s hands, clenched together in her lap, turned white at the knuckles, but she didn’t speak. She’d said she wasn’t going to try to defend herself any more and somehow or other was going to stick to that. She mustn’t let him goad her into argument—

“Or perhaps,” went on the mocking voice of the stranger who had been John, “you’d prefer that we went back to the
Seven Stars
? In the hope of convincing me that you really do prefer the simple life, you know! ”

In her mind’s eye. Rosamund saw a picture of the
Seven Stars
and its setting—the tranquil water, the flowery hedges and the birds singing in a blue sky. But even more vividly she recalled the peace and happiness of the place and the friendliness she had been shown there.

Her hand moved in sharp protest.

“No! Not there. Not now!”

“No? Just as you like. Then we’ll make it Lindacres, shall we?”

“I don’t think, really, it matters where we go,” Rosamund told him quietly. “I leave it to you.”

John didn’t answer, but his foot came down more heavily on the accelerator. He drove for the best part of an hour and then, for no apparent reason, stopped on the crest of a hill. Rosamund, roused from her apathy, turned to look at him questioningly.

John pointed down to the valley.

“As a sentimentalist, I thought you’d like to have your first glimpse of your new home,” he explained. “Charming, isn’t it? So simple and homelike!”

It was surely the least apt description of Lindacres that there could be!

Glaringly white in the bright sunshine, it sprawled incongruously in grounds that were outstandingly beautiful. It was angular, clumsy and pretentious. To Rosamund it also looked oddly self-conscious as if it knew that it didn’t really belong in that delightful setting.

“No, I’d hardly call it charming,” she said consideringly. “I think functional is the word I’d use to describe it. Built for a special purpose and probably quite satisfactory from that point of view. As to it being homelike—it could be, of course, because being a home doesn’t depend on any particular building but on the people who live in it.”

John laughed shortly.

“You’re right about it being functional. But if you can turn that soap-works into a home, I’ll—” he left the sentence unfinished to go on in a puzzled way: “What the deuce is going on down there? There’s a coach just drawn up at the front door and another one following it. And they’re both full of people—children—masses of them!”

“Could it be a fete of some sort?” Rosamund speculated without much interest. “Do you lend the grounds for that sort of thing?”

“I think so, sometimes, though I can’t say I know much about it. But it can’t be that. It’s too late in the day for people, particularly children, to be arriving for a thing like that. Besides, there’d surely be marquees or tents if it was a fete. There always are. Oh, confound it, perhaps, after all, we’d better go up to town—”

“No, we can’t do that,” Rosamund declared decisively. “If it isn’t a fete, then it must be an emergency of some sort, and we must see if we can help.”

John, startled not only by her earnestness but also by her evident concern, looked at her sharply, and then without comment started the car up again.

When they reached the wide open gates of Lindacres it became clear that Rosamund was right—there was some sort of emergency, for a policeman was posted there. John pulled up as he came towards them.

“What’s up?” John demanded.

“A fire at the Greystoke Orphanage and they’re bringing the kids here,” the policeman explained briefly. “I must ask you to move on, sir, you’re blocking the entry. No, you can’t go in! ” he laid a heavy hand on the side of the car as if to detain it by force. “It’s not a peepshow, you know!”

“Don’t be a fool, man.” John said crisply. “It happens to be my property ! I’m John Lindsay.”

“Sorry, sir,” the constable apologised, taking his hand away. “I didn’t know. I’m new in this district—”

John accepted the explanation with a nod and continued along the well-kept drive. On either side of them were immaculately kept lawns that were broken at intervals with glowing flower beds and low-growing shrubs. It was, perhaps, rather 'formal, but none the less very beautiful, yet neither John nor Rosamund had a look to spare for them. They were motivated by a common urge to get to the house as quickly as possible.

A little spark of hope flamed in Rosamund’s heart.

“At least we’re sharing something,” she exulted. “Perhaps—”

But after that, she had no time to think of anything but the contretemps into which they had so suddenly and unexpectedly become involved.

Pandemonium reigned! Children, both boys and girls, milled in and out of the house, completely out of control, shouting and screaming with excitement. There didn’t seem to be anyone in charge of them.

“This won’t do!” John declared wrathfully. “I don’t mind coming to the rescue, but I’m damned if I’ll stand— there
must
be someone in charge! Follow close behind me, Rosamund, and we’ll see if we can wade through these brats—”

He succeeded in clearing a way into the huge hall, but here the commotion, if possible, was even worse. The children, most of them sitting disconsolately on the floor, were younger than those they had already encountered and they were frightened and unhappy. Most of them were sobbing uncontrollably and several had flung themselves face down in a state of near-hysteria. And still there seemed to be no one in charge.

Grim-faced, John made his way to the preposterously ostentatious staircase at the foot of which was an outsize metal gong. Seizing the stick, he began to beat an imperative and noisy tattoo on the gong.

The effect was instantaneous and dramatic. As if by magic the hubbub stopped and even the older children crowded silently in from the garden to see what it was all about. Even more, two startled women shot out of a room which opened off the hall. One was elderly. Her grey hair was dishevelled and her distracted air gave the impression of a hen that is convinced someone is going to rob her nest. The other was very much younger, at the outside not more than twenty-two or three. She had a pretty little face that looked as if it was made for smiling, but at the moment it was pretematurally serious and concerned.

“Well, really!” the older woman snorted indignantly, her hand on her heart. “As if we haven’t enough to put up with already—”

“Are you in charge of the children, madam?” John demanded, ruthlessly cutting across the fluttering complaints.

“Yes, I am!” The elderly voice assumed a rather incongruous note of authority. “And whoever you are,
1
must really ask you not to make a nuisance of yourself. Everything is difficult enough—”