“You and I have had quite a happy time together, these last few months,” he went on, “even though there is still that black cloud between us.  I have tried to treat you as kindly and tenderly as though I were really your husband and you were indeed my wife.”

“You’re not going away?” she cried, startled.  “I couldn’t bear that!  No one could ever be so sweet as you have been to me.”

“Dear,” he said, “I want you to think—­of your husband—­of Everard.  He was a soldier once 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.”