“Well!” said Sarah.

Mary quite silently felt in her pocket at the back of her short, green frock, produced the ring, gave it to Sarah, and, still without a word, turned back down the path and walked to her nurse.  She stood there, clutching a doll in her hand, stared in front of her, and said nothing.  Sarah looked at the ring, smiled, and put it into her pocket.

At that instant the climax of the whole affair struck, like a blow from some one unseen, upon Sarah’s consciousness.  She should have been triumphant.  She was not.  Her one thought as she looked at the ring was that she wished Mary had not taken it.  She had a strange feeling as though Mary, soft and heavy and fat, were hanging round her neck.  She had “got” Mary for ever.  She was suddenly conscious that she despised Mary, and had lost all interest in her.  She didn’t want the ring, nor did she ever wish to see Mary again.

She gazed about the garden, shrugged her thin, little, bony shoulders as though she were fifty at least, and felt tired and dull, as on the day after a party.  She stood and looked at Mary and her nurse; when she saw them walk away she did not move, but stayed there, staring after them.  She was greatly disappointed; she did not feel any pleasure at having forced Mary to obey her, but would have liked to have smacked and bitten her, could these violent actions have driven her into speech.  In some undetermined way Mary’s silence had beaten Sarah.  Mary was a stupid, silly little girl, and Sarah despised and scorned her, but, somehow, that was not enough; from all of this, it simply remained that Sarah would like now to forget her, and could not.  What did the silly little thing mean by looking like that?  “She’ll go and hug her Alice and cry over it.”  If only she had cried in front of Sarah that would have been something.

Two days later Lady Charlotte was explaining to Sarah that so acute a financial crisis had arrived “as likely as not we shan’t have a roof over our heads in a day or two.”

“We’ll take an organ and a monkey,” said Sarah.

“At any rate,” Lady Charlotte said, “when you grow up you’ll be used to anything.”

Mrs. Kitson, untidy, in dishevelled clothing, and great distress, was shown in.

“Dear Lady Charlotte, I must apologise—­this absurd hour—­but I—­we—­very unhappy about poor Mary.  We can’t think what’s the matter with her.  She’s not slept for two nights—­in a high fever, and cries and cries.  The Doctor—­Dr. Williamson—­really clever—­says she’s unhappy about something.  We thought—­scarlet fever—­no spots—­can’t think—­perhaps your little girl.”

“Poor Mrs. Kitson.  How tiresome for you.  Do sit down.  Perhaps Sarah——­”

Sarah shook her head.

“She didn’t say she’d a headache in the garden the other day.”

Mrs. Kitson gazed appealingly at the little black figure in front of her.

“Do try and remember, dear.  Perhaps she told you something.”