The station clock showed only five minutes to seven.  I was astounded.  It seemed to me that all the real world had been astir and busy for hours.  And this extraordinary activity went on every morning while Aunt Constance and I lay in our beds and thought well of ourselves.

I shivered, and walked quickly up the street.  I had positively not noticed that I was cold.  I had scarcely left the station before Fred Ryley appeared in front of me.  I saw that his face was swollen.  My heart stopped.  Of course, he would tell Ethel....  He passed me sheepishly without stopping, merely raising his hat, and murmuring the singular words: 

‘We’re both very, very sorry.’

What in the name of Heaven could they possibly know, he and Ethel?  And what right had he to ...?  Did he smile furtively?  Fred Ryley had sometimes a strange smile.  I reddened, angry and frightened.

The distance between the station and our house proved horribly short.  And when I arrived in front of the green gates, and put my hand on the latch, I knew that I had formed no plan whatever.  I opened the right-hand gate and entered the garden.  The blinds were still down, and the house looked so decorous and innocent in its age.  My poor aunt!  What a night she must have been through!  It was inconceivable that I should tell her what had happened to me.  Indeed, under the windows of that house it seemed inconceivable that the thing had happened which had happened.  Inconceivable!  Grotesque!  Monstrous!

But could I lie?  Could I rise to the height of some sufficient and kindly lie?

A hand drew slightly aside the blind of the window over the porch.  I sighed, and went wearily, in my boat-shaped straw, up the gravelled path to the door.

Rebecca met me at the door.  It was so early that she had not yet put on an apron.  She looked tired, as if she had not slept.

‘Come in, miss,’ she said weakly, holding open the door.

It seemed to me that I did not need this invitation from a servant.

‘I suppose you’ve all been fearfully upset, wondering where I was,’ I began, entering the hall.

My adventure appeared fantastically unreal to me in the presence of this buxom creature, whom I knew to be incapable of imagining anything one hundredth part so dreadful.

’No, miss; I wasn’t upset on account of you.  You’re always so sensible like.  You always know what to do.  I knew as you must have stopped the night with friends in Hanbridge on account of the heavy rain, and perhaps that there silly cabman not turning up, and them tramcars all crowded; and, of course, you couldn’t telegraph.’

This view that I was specially sagacious and equal to emergencies rather surprised me.

‘But auntie?’ I demanded, trembling.

‘Oh, miss!’ cried Rebecca, glancing timidly over her shoulder, ’I want you to come with me into the dining-room before you go upstairs.’