He sat down and once more he drew his sheet of foolscap in front of him.  He could write his clear succinct statement now, write it in “nervous prose.”  He was not quite sure what nervous prose actually was, but he knew it to be the correct medium to use on these occasions.

Meanwhile Joan ran down the stairs.

“I am afraid I have been very lazy this morning,” she cried.  She saw Harry Luttrell, she coloured to the eyes, she smiled doubtfully and said in a little whimsical voice, “We didn’t after all, practise in the passage.”

Then, and only then, did she realise that something was amiss.  Millie Splay in her desire to spare her darling the sudden shock of learning what calamity had befallen the house that night had bidden Joan’s maid keep silence.  She herself would break the news.  But Millie Splay was busy with telegrams to Robert Croyle and Stella’s own friends, and all the sad little duties which wait on death; and Joan ran down into the midst of the debate without a warning.

Martin Hillyard would have given it to her, but Sir Chichester was hot upon his report.

“Joan, my dear,” he said confidently.  “There’s a little point—­not in dispute really—­but—­well there’s a little point.  It has been said that you came straight back here last night from Harrel?”

Joan’s face turned slowly white.  She stood with her great eyes fixed upon Sir Chichester, still as an image, and she did not answer a word.  Harry Luttrell drew in a quick breath like a man in pain.  Sir Chichester was selecting a new pen and noticed nothing.

“It’s ridiculous, of course, my dear, but I must put to you the formal question.  Did you?”

“Yes,” answered Joan, and the pen fell from Sir Chichester’s hand.

“But—­but—­how did you come back?”

“I borrowed Miranda’s car.”

Miranda’s legs gave under her and she sank down with a moan in a chair.

“But Miranda denies that she lent it,” said Sir Chichester in exasperation.

“I asked her to deny it.”

“Why?”

Joan’s eyes for one swift instant swept round to Harry Luttrell.  She swayed.  Then she answered: 

“I can’t tell you.”

Sir Chichester rose to his feet and tore his sheet of foolscap across.

“God bless my soul!” he said to himself rather than to any of that company.  “God bless my soul!” He moved away from the table.  “I think I’ll go and see Millie.  Yes!  I’ll consult with Millie,” and he ascended the stairs heavily, a very downcast and bewildered man.  It seemed as though old age had suddenly found him out, and bowed his shoulders and taken the spring from his limbs.  Something of this he felt himself, for he was heard to mutter as he passed along the landing to his wife’s sitting-room: 

“I am not the man I was.  I feel difficulties more”; and so he passed from sight.

Harry Luttrell turned then to Joan.