She had failed him utterly—­failed in that faithfulness of the spirit without which love is no more than a sex instinct.  She knew it must appear like this to him, although deep within herself she was conscious that it was not really so.  In her heart there was a white flame that would burn only for Peter—­an altar flame which nothing could touch or defile.  And the men who loved her knew it.  It was this, the knowledge that the inmost soul and spirit of her eluded him, which had kept Roger’s jealous anger at such a dangerous pitch.

“There is only one thing.”  Peter was speaking again, still in the same curiously detached tones as before.  It was almost as though he were discussing the affairs of someone else—­affairs which did not concern him very vitally.  “There’s only one more thing to be said.  You’ve made it easier for me to do—­what I have to do.”

“What you have to do?” she repeated.

“Yes.  I’ve had a cable from India.  My wife is no better, and I’m going out to bring her home.”

“I’m sorry she’s no better,” said Nan mechanically.

He murmured a formal word of thanks and then once more the dreadful silence hemmed them round.  A hesitating knock sounded on the door and, after a moment’s discreet delay, Sandy’s freckled face peered round the doorway.

“I’m afraid you must leave now, Mallory, if you’re to catch the up train,” he said apologetically.  “Kitty is here, waiting to drive you to the station.”

Together they all three went out into the drive where Kitty was sitting behind the wheel of the car, Eliza perched skittishly on the rubbered step, talking with her.  Aunt Eliza’s opinion of “that red-headed body” had altered considerably during the course of the last year.

“And mind an’ look in on your way back,” she insisted.

Kitty nodded.

“I will.  I want to talk to Nan.”

“Ye’ll no’ be too hard on her?” besought Eliza.

Kitty laughed.

“Aunt Eliza dear, you’re the biggest fraud I know!  Your severity’s just a pretence,”—­bending forward to kiss her—­“and a very thin one at that.”

Then she greeted Nan precisely as though nothing had happened since they had last met, and, with a handshake all round, Mallory stepped into the car beside her and was whirled away to the station.

“It seems years since yesterday morning,” said Nan, when, after Kitty’s return from the station, they found themselves alone together.

For once Kitty had diverged from her usual principle, and a little jar of red stuff was responsible for the colour in her cheeks.  Her eyes still blenched at the remembrance of that day and night’s anxiety which she had endured alone.

“Yes,” she acquiesced simply.  “It seems years.”  And then, bit by bit, she drew from Nan the whole story of her flight from Mallow and of the violent scene which had preceded it, when Roger had so ruthlessly destroyed the portrait.