“Poor old thing,” said Mrs. Wilkins, shutting the door gently on Mrs. Fisher and her triumph.  “Fancy on a day like this.”

“She’s a very rude old thing,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot.

“She’ll get over that.  I’m sorry we chose just her room to go and sit in.”

“It’s much the nicest,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot.  “And it isn’t hers.”

“Oh but there are lots of other places, and she’s such a poor old thing.  Let her have the room.  Whatever does it matter?”

And Mrs. Wilkins said she was going down to the village to find out where the post-office was and post her letter to Mellersh, and would Rose go too.

“I’ve been thinking about Mellersh,” said Mrs. Wilkins as they walked, one behind the other, down the narrow zigzag path up which they had climbed in the rain the night before.

She went first.  Mrs. Arbuthnot, quite naturally now, followed.  In England it had been the other way about—­Lotty, timid, hesitating, except when she burst out so awkwardly, getting behind the calm and reasonable Rose whenever she could.

“I’ve been thinking about Mellersh,” repeated Mrs. Wilkins over her shoulder, as Rose seemed not to have heard.

“Have you?” said Rose, a faint distaste in her voice, for her experiences with Mellersh had not been of a kind to make her enjoy remembering him.  She had deceived Mellersh; therefore she didn’t like him.  She was unconscious that this was the reason of her dislike, and thought it was that there didn’t seem to be much, if any, of the grace of god about him.  And yet how wrong to feel that, she rebuked herself, and how presumptuous.  No doubt Lotty’s husband was far, far nearer to God than she herself was ever likely to be.  Still, she didn’t like him.

“I’ve been a mean dog,” said Mrs. Wilkins.

“A what?” asked Mrs. Arbuthnot, incredulous of her hearing.

“All this coming away and leaving him in that dreary place while I rollick in heaven.  He had planned to take me to Italy for Easter himself.  Did I tell you?”

“No,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot; and indeed she had discouraged talk about husbands.  Whenever Lotty had begun to blurt out things she had swiftly changed the conversation.  One husband led to another, in conversation as well as in life, she felt, and she could not, she would not, talk of Frederick.  Beyond the bare fact that he was there, he had not been mentioned.  Mellersh had had to be mentioned, because of his obstructiveness, but she had carefully kept him from overflowing outside the limits of necessity.

“Well, he did,” said Mrs. Wilkins.  “He had never done such a thing in his life before, and I was horrified.  Fancy—­just as I had planned to come to it myself.”

She paused on the path and looked up at Rose.

“Yes,” said Rose, trying to think of something else to talk about.

“Now you see why I say I’ve been a mean dog.  He had planned a holiday in Italy with me, and I had planned a holiday in Italy leaving him at home.  I think,” she went on, her eyes fixed on Rose’s face, “Mellersh has every reason to be both angry and hurt.”