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words came just above a whisper in a little child’s voice. Then the window banged and the curtains fell. “It must be frightfully odd to be a widow. I expect it adds years to one’s natural stuffiness. I’m going to grow my hair and do it in curls. David would like me to.”
    â€œDid he say so?” Eleanor’s tone was dry.
    â€œâ€™M—he did . He thinks you’re beautiful.”
    Eleanor laughed.
    â€œI suppose he told you that too?”
    â€œâ€™M—I said, ‘Do you think Eleanor is beautiful?’ And he said—no, I shan’t tell you what he said—and then I thought I’d grow my hair and have it in curls like you, and not put any stuff on my face, or do my lips, and always be goood . You and David were engaged, weren’t you?”
    â€œFolly, what a little idiot you are!”
    â€œYou were engaged, weren’t you?”
    â€œAncient history,” said Eleanor.
    â€œWhy didn’t you get married?”
    â€œWe were infants—there was nothing in it.”
    Folly looked through half-closed eyelids; and something in the look set a spark to Eleanor’s temper.
    â€œPerhaps if I’m very good, and let my hair grow, and wash my face with yellow soap—Do you wash your face with yellow soap, Eleanor darling?”
    â€œDo I look as if I did?”
    â€œSometimes. No—not really. What a temper you’ve got! It jumped out of your eyes like red-hot knives. Does David like people with tempers? I could grow one whilst I was growing my hair if he does.”
    She stood on one foot and caught the heel of the other in her left hand. With the fingers of the right she blew Eleanor a kiss.
    â€œI haven’t quite made up my mind whether I’ll have David,” she said. “I might get bored with him.”
    Eleanor was conscious of colour in her cheeks.
    â€œIt’s time you stopped talking nonsense and went to bed.”
    â€œOf course, if you want him,” said Folly, twirling on one bare foot.
    Eleanor went out of the room; the door shut sharply.
    By the time she reached her own room she was wondering why she had so nearly lost her temper. Folly had scored instead of being coolly snubbed as she deserved. She moved about the room for a little without undressing. There was a pleasant fire. A fire-lit room and a still house. There was something about Ford that felt like home. She sat down by the fire and let the stillness and the firelight and that home feeling have their way.
    It might have been half an hour later that she heard the sound and raised her head to listen. It was quite a little sound, faint and distant. As she listened, she heard another sound, fainter still. Someone had opened one of the long windows in the room below; she had heard the bolt move and the catch slip. She sprang up and went to the window.
    The shadow of the house lay black upon a flagged path and a stretch of turf. She pushed the window open and leaned out, listening. In the shadow someone was moving. She could not see the movement, but she could hear it. The sound grew fainter.
    The shadow lay twenty feet wide. Eleanor’s window looked upon the path and a steep grassy slope that fell away to woodland. The terrace lay on the right, and the moon shone on it. The edge of the shadow was very sharp and black. It crossed the flagged path at an angle.
    Eleanor leaned out, and heard the footsteps pass; someone was going in the direction of the terrace. She watched the edge of the shadow and held her breath.
    Quite suddenly a black-cloaked figure crossed the line between shadow and moonlight. Eleanor saw blackness—movement—a cloak that covered everything. And then the figure was gone. Just short of the terrace the path descended by a dozen steps; the wall of the terrace shadowed them.
    The figure that had come out of the darkness dropped down the steps and was lost in the dark again.
    Eleanor shut her window and snatched a