’Oh, I don’t know.  I’m away all day.  But she might at least pretend to refer to him—­or me—­sometimes.  It’s the same in everything.  She twists father round her little finger; and you can see all the time what she thinks—­that there never was such a bad landlord, or such a miserable, feckless crew as the rest of us, before she came to put us straight!’

Desmond listened—­partly resisting—­but finally carried away.  By the time their talk was over he felt that he too hated Elizabeth Bremerton, and that it was horrid to have to leave Pamela with her.

When they said good-night Pamela threw herself on her bed face downwards, more wretched than she had ever been—­wretched because Desmond was going, and might be killed, wretched, too, because her conscience told her that she had spoilt his last evening, and made him exceedingly unhappy, by a lot of exaggerated complaints.  She was degenerating—­she knew it.  ’I am a little beast, compared to what I was when I left school,’ she confessed to herself with tears, and did not know how to get rid of this fiery plague that was eating at her heart.  She seemed to look back to a time—­only yesterday!—­when poetry and high ideals, friendships and religion filled her mind; and now nothing—­nothing!—­was of any importance, but the look, the voice, the touch of a man.

The next day, Desmond’s last day at home, for he was due in London by the evening, was gloomy and embarrassed for all concerned.  Elizabeth, pre-occupied and shrinking from her own thoughts, could not imagine what had happened.  She had put off all her engagements for the day, that she might help in any last arrangements that might have to be made for Desmond.

But Desmond declined to be helped, not rudely, but with a decision, which took Elizabeth aback.

’Mayn’t I look out some books for you?  I have found some more pocket classics,’ she had said to him with a smile, remembering his application to her in the autumn.

‘No, thank you.  I shall have no time.’  And with that, a prompt retreat to Pamela and the Den.  Elizabeth, indeed, who was all eagerness to serve him, found herself rebuffed at every turn.

Nor were matters any better with Pamela, who had cried off her hospital work in order to pack for Desmond.  Elizabeth, seeing her come downstairs with an armful of khaki shirts to be marked, offered assistance—­almost timidly.  But Pamela’s ’Thank you, but I’d rather not trouble you—­I can do it quite well’—­was so frosty that Elizabeth could only retire—­bewildered—­to the library, where she and the Squire gave a morning’s work to the catalogue, and never said a word of farm or timber.

But the Squire worked irritably, finding fault with a number of small matters, and often wandering away into the house to see what Desmond was doing.  During these intervals Elizabeth would sit, pen in hand, staring absently into the dripping garden and the park beaten by a cold rain.  The future began to seem to her big with events and perplexity.