“She’s fixed up to go out with me this afternoon,” he said slowly.

“Tch!” Kitty clicked her tongue sharply against her teeth and, crossing to the chimneypiece, took down a letter which, was resting there.  “I’d forgotten this!  She left it to be given to you when you called for her this afternoon.  I wanted her to ’phone and put you off, but she said you would understand when you’d read the letter and that there was something she wanted you to do for her.”

Sandy ripped open the envelope and his eyes flew down the page.  Its contents struck him like a blow—­none the less hard because it had been vaguely anticipated—­and a half-stifled exclamation broke from him.

“Sandy dear”—­it ran—­“I’m going to vanish out of your life, but we’ve been such good pals that I can’t do it without just a word of good-bye, not of justification—­I know there’s none for what I’m going to do.  But I know, too, that there’ll be a little pity in your heart for me, and that you, at least, will understand in a way why I’ve had to do this, and won’t blame me quite so much as the rest of the world.  I’m going away with Maryon, and by this afternoon, when you come to fetch me for our motor spin, I shall have taken the first step on the new road.  Nothing you could have said would have altered my determination, so you need never think that, Sandy boy.  I know your first impulse will be to put the ‘stink-pot’ along at forty miles an hour in wild pursuit of me.  But you can spare your petrol.  Be very sure that even if you overtook me, I shouldn’t come back.

“I don’t expect to find happiness, but life with Maryon can never be dull.  There’d never be anything to occupy my mind at Trenby—­except soup jellies.  So it would just go running round and round in circles—­with the memory of all I’ve missed as the pivot of the circle.  I’m sure Maryon will at least be able to stop me from thinking in circles.  He’s always flying off at a tangent—­and naturally I shall have to go flying after him.

“And now there’s just one thing I want you still to do for me. Tell Kitty.  I couldn’t leave a letter for her, as it might have been found almost at once.  You won’t get this till you come over for me in the afternoon, and by that time Maryon and I shall be far enough away.  Give Kitty all my love, and tell her I feel a beast to leave her like this after her angel goodness to me.  And say to her, too, that I will write very soon.

“Good-bye, Sandy boy.”

“Well?  Well?” Kitty’s patience was getting exhausted.  Moreover there was something in the set look on Sandy’s face that frightened her.

He handed her the letter.

“She’s bolted with Maryon Rooke,” he said simply.

When Kitty had absorbed the contents of the letter she looked up at him blankly.  The shock of it held her momentarily speechless.  Then, after what seemed to her an endless silence, she stammered out: