“Has Piers come down yet?” she asked abruptly.  “I saw him in town two nights ago.  I’ve been up there for a day or two with Dick, but he has rejoined now.  It’s been embarkation leave.  They’re off directly.”

Off!  Avery’s heart gave a single hard throb and stood still.  She looked at Ina wordlessly.  The shop in which they stood suddenly lost all form and sound.  It seemed to float round her in nebulous billows.

“Good gracious!” said Ina.  “Don’t look like that!  What’s up?  Aren’t you well?  Here, sit down!  Or better still, come outside!”

She gripped Avery’s arm in a tense, insistent grasp and piloted her to the door.

Avery went, hardly knowing what she did.  Ina turned commandingly to Gracie.

“Look here, child!  You stay and collect the parcels!  I’m going to take Lady Evesham a little way in the car.  We’ll come back for you in a few minutes.”

She had her own way, as she had always had it on every occasion, save one, throughout her life.

When Avery felt her heart begin to beat again, she was lying back in a closed car with Ina seated beside her, very upright, extremely alert.

“Don’t speak!” the latter said, as their eyes met.  “I’ll tell you all I know.  Dick and I have been stopping at Marchmont’s for the last five days, and one night Piers walked in.  Of course we made him join us.  He was very thin, but looked quite tough and sunburnt.  He is rather magnificent in khaki—­like a prince masquerading.  I think he talked without ceasing during the whole evening, but he didn’t say a single word that I can remember.  He expects to go almost any day now.  He is in a regiment of Lancers, but I couldn’t get any particulars out of him.  He didn’t choose to be communicative, so of course I left him alone.  He is turning white about the temples; did you know?”

Avery braced herself to answer the blunt question.  There was something merciless about Ina’s straight regard.  It pierced her; but oddly she felt no resentment, only a curious sensation of compassionate sympathy.

“Yes, I saw him—­some weeks ago,” she said.

“You have not decided to separate then?  Everyone said you had.”

Ina’s tone was brutally direct, yet still, strangely, Avery felt no indignation.

“We have not been—­friends—­for the last year,” she said.

“Ah!  I thought not.  And why?  Just because of that story about your first husband’s death that Dick’s hateful cousin spread about on our wedding-day?”

Ina looked at her with searching, challenging eyes, and Avery felt suddenly as if she were the younger and weaker of the two.

“Was it because of that?” Ina insisted.

“Yes,” she admitted.