ANN looked, for the twentieth time, out of the window, and her heart staggered as she saw, at last, the very dark blue Mercedes coming through the gate.

Randall had now been gone a week, rather more than a week. It seemed to her a century of experience. She had been amazed, frightened, at the intensity of her pain. Envisaging beforehand the situation she was now in, Ann had thought that at least whatever else there was there would be an element of relief. But there was no relief: only a blank misery of loss shot through with the most terrible jealousy. She was astonished at her sudden capacity to be jealous; she had somehow, and she saw stupidly, imagined herself to be above jealousy. But now she was positively brought to the ground by it. Randall, for all his tiresomeness and badness, had always been her Randall, and she had thought of him as such even when she half knew, even when she knew, that he was going to another woman. He was hers as a mild chronic illness might be hers, when one knows all its strange ways and it has become a part of the personality. He belonged to her and in her, this was loving him, for better or worse she was Randall. And she had really believed that however broken down and odd things became, at best they would continue. But Randall had gone, Randall referring her to his solicitor, this was fearful and dreadful, and she was not prepared for bearing it.

She missed him hideously, and yearned for him with a violent fruitless yearning which was a kind of maimed falling in love. His absence had not so much mattered, had not so much been felt, before. I h d not been real absence. But now the house gaped and rattled with it. She began to be afraid of the house, especially at night. It was as if its old indifference, now that Randall's protection was removed, had begun to reveal itself as something more sinister. She felt, upon dark stairways and in quiet empty rooms, a brooding hostility. She wished she could leave it.

Mildred Finch, who with a rather sham-faced Felix had in fact still been waiting around when Anne had emerged after comforting Miranda on that first day, had most cordially invited her to stay at Seton Blaise. The idea of the comfortable friendliness, of the sheer beautiful orderliness, of the other house, the idea of being taken charge of and looked after, tempted Ann extremely; but she said no. She had her reasons for not wanting to go to Seton Blaise at present. Mildred had then offered to have the children to stay, but Ann had refused that too. She did not want to be separated from Miranda, and it seemed cruel to send Penny away at a time when, rightly or wrongly, he might feel that he could be of some service to his cousin. Miranda, after her early hysterics, had retired into a moody taciturnity, and Ann could only conjecture what she thought and suffered. Hugh had been down twice, each time for the inside of a day, but had seemed restless and self-absorbed and could not be persuaded to stay.

Ann had written to Randall at Chelsea saying that she did not want to divorce him. She wrote this coldly, as the situation seemed to leave her no other way of writing it. It would have been inconceivable to wail or entreat. But the coldness chilled her all through and she felt herself already in the grip of some machine-like necessity. She had never in the past, however violent and unpleasant Randall had been, met him with coldness, and only rarely with anger. Even now she did not feel resentment against Randall. Perhaps she would yet have to learn it in order to survive. She had written to the solicitor saying she had no. wish to discuss divorce proceedings at present. She did not exactly expect Randall back, and she certainly did not intend to go on refusing him a divorce. But she could not suddenly, and however great the shock of his departure, give up all her old hopes.

She was sorry that, on the first day, she had made that distracted telephone call to Douglas. He meant well, but his sentimental sympathy had been irritating, unwelcome, almost degrading. And then the arrival of all those inquisitive people had made such a rowdy undignified scene. She ought, at that time, to have made sure that she had her grief to herself. A fuss and a drama had been made, and Miranda; who at breakfast time had been fairly calm, had become quite hysterical later in the morning. She was rather sorry too that Felix had come.

Ann was surprised to discover that even in the midst of the acute pain she was suffering she did continue to think about Felix. His image was present constantly in the background of her preoccupations, like a picture in a busy room, not regarded yet somehow affecting the consciousness. She was obscurely aware too of the possibility of recent events having altered her relation with Felix; but she was not sure whether the effect was simply to make him more remote or whether it was something else. While Randall's protection, however unwillingly given, had formally remained to her, there had been as it were a separate compartment in which Felix could be stored. Now she would have to make, for him, some other arrangement. She had not thought this out, and occupied with her maimed and obsessive passion for Randall, she had let the image of Felix recede a little and grow dim. Yet it still remained like a distant light and though she did not look at it she was glad it was there.

She had told him that she would ring him, but she had not done so. 'When it came to it, the action seemed a little too significant, and she had put it off. It was better to leave things. Then she had received a rather formal little note from Felix saying that he was going back to London, but that he would be returning to Seton Blaise, after dining nearby, on a certain evening, and might he drop in briefly on the way to take a cup of coffee and inquire how she was? Ann had said yes to this, as it seemed too unkind to say no — and because she suddenly felt he wanted to see him. Oh, as the day went on, she wanted very much to see him. And she trembled now, seeing the Mercedes.

It was late evening and the sky was an intense blue from which the radiance had been gradually withdrawn. The colours in the garden had risen to their last peak of shimmering brightness and now faded quietly like a descending hand. Murky purples and browns thickened in the distance. It was a very quiet evening. The church bells had been ringing for a practice, a sad sound, but they were silent now. As she went to the door Ann switched on the lamps in the drawing-room, and as she did so she glimpsed herself for a moment in the big mirror. She had put on a summer dress instead of her usual blouse and skirt, and the unexpected image startled her. She seemed another person.

'Come in, Felix, come into the drawing-room. How very nice to see you. Would you like the electric fire? It's getting rather chilly now. I've got some brandy for you, I hope it's the right kind. You have dined, haven't you?

Felix came stooping through the doorway. He looked, she thought, terribly respectable in his dark suit and outrageously immaculate shirt and narrow tie. Ann, even in her best cotton dress, felt shabby and tousled beside him. She smiled at the thought.

Felix accepted the electric fire and the brandy, said he had dined, and answered questions about Mildred's welfare. Then silence fell between them.

They were sitting in armchairs on either side of the fireplace. The electric fire sat a little forlornly in the big grate. Aim could feel him looking at her and tried quickly to think of something to' say. It struck her suddenly as extraordinary that she should be sitting here so late at night alone with Felix: extraordinary and pleasant and alarming. Then she was amazed to find herself feeling tearful. She said quickly the first thing that came into her head. 'Oh, everything is such a mess here. I do wish I could catch up. I just get into more and more of a muddle. I still haven't sent out those catalogues.’ Felix said, 'I wish you'd let me help you. Couldn't I do the catalogues?