Miss Silver saw her niece Ethel off by an early train, and later strolled down on to the beach. Passing the hut which belonged to Cliff Edge, she stopped to speak to Mrs. Field and enquire how she was getting on with her knitting.

“Very badly indeed, I’m afraid.”

Miss Silver became aware that there was something wrong. Those swollen eyelids, that tremor in the voice. She sat down beside Esther Field, discovered a number of dropped stitches in the red woolly shawl, and began to pick them up. Presently her kind voice and the cheerful ordinariness of her conversation had their effect. Alan couldn’t really mean to publish his father’s private letters-you didn’t do things like that. And you didn’t hand over large sums of money to a wild extravagant young man who had dissipated far too much already. He wasn’t a boy any longer, and it was time he turned to some sensible employment and settled down. Perhaps a small share in the ranch he had mentioned-he had always been very fond of horses…

She began to take an interest in the new way of holding her needles. It would certainly help her not to drop stitches, but she was afraid she would never be able to remember about looping the wool over her left forefinger instead of her right. She said so, and was assured that it would all come with practice.

Mrs. Field shook her head doubtfully.

“I’m afraid I’m really rather a stupid person,” she said. “I can do the kind of things I learned when I was young, but I don’t seem to be any good at new ones. Do you think that might make one not really able to understand someone else’s point of view?”

Miss Silver said in a meditative voice,

“I suppose it might-”

Esther had an impulse towards confidence. She said,

“There is my stepson-I don’t know if you have met him. He is staying with Darsie Anning.”

“A tall young man with fair hair-very good-looking?”

Esther Field nodded.

“He is-isn’t he? He is like my husband, you know, and he has the same kind of charm. But he doesn’t settle down to anything.”

She told Miss Silver a good deal about Alan Field, finishing up with,

“He wants me to advance quite a large sum of money for something which I’m afraid I don’t think at all sensible. But of course he thinks it very unkind of me to refuse.”

Miss Silver looked shocked.

“My dear Mrs. Field!”

The tears rushed into Esther’s eyes.

“I know, I know-I oughtn’t to do it-I mustn’t do it. But if I don’t-”

Carmona was coming towards them across the sands. Esther felt an odd relief. She didn’t know what she might have said if she had been able to go on talking to Miss Silver. It was so easy to talk to her. But she might have said too much. She hoped that she had not done so already.

The next moment she was thinking that Carmona looked pale. There were shadows under her eyes. Her voice had a lifeless sound as she greeted Miss Silver and asked,

“Where is Pippa? Have you seen her?”

“I think she has gone out.”

“Out?”

“She called something down over the cliff. I think she said she was taking that horrid little red car. I only hope it’s safe.”

Carmona sat down in the patch of shade.

“Oh, I expect so.”

Embarked on the topic, Esther found it easy to go on.

“You know, she does fly about too much. I thought she really didn’t look very well this morning. Of course, with all the stuff girls put on their faces, you can’t tell, can you?”

Miss Silver said, “No, indeed,” but opined that the general effect was often pleasing.

They continued to talk about make-up, a subject upon which one would not have supposed them to possess any particular knowledge, but which appeared to interest them in no small degree.

By the time they had finished their chat Esther was feeling a great deal better. The world about her had again become the world she knew-one in which pretty girls made up their faces, young people fell in love and got married, and no one really wanted to do wrong or to act unkindly. When sorrow visited this world it was endured with courage and with the consolations of a simple faith. Friends were kind, and in due time cheerfulness returned. She became more and more persuaded that Alan could not possibly have meant what he said.

To Carmona their talk was like something on a radio programme which you hear, but to which you do not listen. It went by, but never once broke in upon the closed circle of her mind. She lay on the beach and let the small hot pebbles run through her fingers.

Miss Silver took her way home in rather a thoughtful mood. That very good-looking Mr. Field appeared to have had a disturbing effect not only on the Annings’ household, but also on Cliff Edge. Very good-looking young men were rather apt to produce this effect upon a distinctively feminine household. There was obviously some link with a younger and perhaps gayer Darsie. Mrs. Anning’s words could really bear no other construction. And now here was this nice Mrs. Field who had certainly been upset to the point of prolonged weeping, to say nothing of Carmona Hardwick whose thoughts appeared to be quite painfully turned in upon themselves. She showed no traces of tears, but if Miss Silver was not very much mistaken, she was at this moment suffering from some kind of shock. There was, further, the rather strange conduct of Mrs. Maybury, an exceedingly pretty young woman of whom she had caught only a glimpse upon the previous evening. She had then appeared to be very far removed from the type which prefers solitude to company. To come down for so short a visit and then go off by herself in this way might have nothing at all to do with Alan Field, but it was obviously causing Mrs. Field some anxiety.

As she walked along the hot cliff path with her knitting-bag on her arm she reflected that human nature was of all studies the most absorbing. The knitting-bag was a new one presented by her niece Ethel upon the occasion of her birthday. The remnant of chintz from which it had been made was most tasteful, the pattern embracing a great number of flowers all blooming together in a profusion seldom conceded by nature, and the lining an agreeable shade of green. A much appreciated feature was the addition of a row of useful pockets to hold everything from pattern-books to spare needles and balls of wool. Her thoughts followed Ethel Burkett on her journey with affection, picturing with pleasure her prospective reunion with the family from whom she was never willingly parted.

It being by now close on one o’clock, Darsie Anning would be engaged in superintending the dishing-up of lunch. Even with a good refrigerator, food must be a problem in such weather as this, and with a foreign staff you really could not be too particular. Miss Silver was therefore surprised as she crossed the upper landing to see Miss Anning come a little way out of her mother’s bedroom and then turn back again.

“Now, Mother, I really must go and see about your lunch. Marie will bring it up to you.”

Mrs. Arming’s voice sounded fretfully through the half open door.

“I don’t like these foreign girls, Darsie. I keep on telling you, but you don’t do anything about it. My mother had a French maid when I was a girl. She read our letters. I should like you to send Marie away. I don’t like her to be left with me. I don’t know why you don’t stay with me yourself. I don’t want you to go away and leave me.”

Miss Anning came out half way upon the landing and saw Miss Silver. At the sound of a fretful sob she drew her brows together and said, “Oh dear!”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Could I perhaps be of any use? I could sit with your mother until her lunch comes up. I know what a busy time this is.”

Darsie Anning gave a short brisk nod.

“That is very kind of you. Mother, here is Miss Silver come to pay you a visit.”

Mrs. Anning was in a state of unusual agitation. She had a high flush and a wandering eye. Miss Silver was asked with insistence to see that the door was really shut.