III

And in Lady Bargrave’s dressing-room that night Gertrude was confiding in Lady Bargrave.

“Yes,” she said, “Cloud must have come in within five minutes of my leaving—­two hours earlier than he was expected.  Fortunately he went straight to his dressing-room.  Or was it unfortunately?  I was half-way to the station when it occurred to me that I hadn’t fastened the envelope!  You see, I was naturally in an awfully nervous state, Minnie.  So I told Collins to turn back.  Fuge, our new butler, is of an extremely curious disposition, and I couldn’t bear the idea of him prying about and perhaps reading that letter before Cloud got it.  And just as I was picking up the letter to fasten it I heard Cloud in the next room.  Oh!  I never felt so queer in all my life!  The poor boy was quite unwell.  I screwed up the letter and went to him.  What else could I do?  And really he was so tired and white—­well, it moved me!  It moved me.  And when he spoke about going away I suddenly thought:  ’Why not try to make a new start with him?’ After all ...”

There was a pause.

“What did you say in the letter?” Lady Bargrave demanded.  “How did you put it?”

“I’ll read it to you,” said Gertrude, and she took the letter from her corsage and began to read it.  She got as far as “I can’t stand this awful Five Towns district,” and then she stopped.

“Well, go on,” Lady Bargrave encouraged her.

“No,” said Gertrude, and she put the letter in the fire.  “The fact is,” she said, going to Lady Bargrave’s chair, “it was too cruel.  I hadn’t realized....  I must have been very worked-up....  One does work oneself up....  Things seem a little different now....”  She glanced at her companion.

“Why, Gertrude, you’re crying, dearest!”

“What a chance it was!” murmured Gertrude, in her tears.  “What a chance!  Because, you know, if he had once read it I would never have gone back on it.  I’m that sort of woman.  But as it is, there’s a sort of hope of a sort of happiness, isn’t there?”

“Gertrude!” It was Sir Cloud’s voice, gentle and tender, outside the door.

“Mercy on us!” exclaimed Lady Bargrave.  “It’s half-past one.  Bargrave will have been asleep long since.”

Gertrude kissed her in silence, opened the door, and left her.

THE GLIMPSE[A]

I

When I was dying I had no fear.  I was simply indifferent, partly, no doubt, through exhaustion caused by my long illness.  It was a warm evening in August.  We ought to have been at Blackpool, of course, but we were in my house in Trafalgar Road, and the tramcars between Hanley and Bursley were shaking the house just as usual.  Perhaps not quite as usual; for during my illness I had noticed that a sort of tiredness, a soft, nice feeling, seems to come