She then hung up the receiver again, and, going to the door which led into the kitchen, she opened it:  “Don’t bring in my supper yet.  I’ll ring, when I’m ready for it.”  She then went back to the little writing-table and waited impatiently.

At last the bell rang.

“I want to speak to Captain Tremaine.  Is he in the Club?  Can you find him?”

She felt an intense thrill of almost superstitious relief when the answer came:  “Yes, ma’am.  He’s in the Club.  I’ll go and fetch him.”

She remembered with relief that Tremaine had told her that no one could overhear, at any rate at his end, what was being said or answered through the telephone—­but she also remembered that it was not the same here, in The Trellis House.

Judging others by herself, as most of us do in this strange world, she felt sure that her two young servants were listening behind the door.  Still, in a sense there was nothing Enid Crofton liked better than pitting her wits against other wits.  So when she heard the question, “Who is it?” she simply answered, “Darling!  Can’t you guess?”

In answer to his rapturous assent, she said quietly, “I’ve made up my mind to do what you wish.”

And then she drank in with intense delight the flood of eager, exultant words, uttered with such a rush of joy, and in so triumphant a tone, that for a moment she thought that they must be heard, if not here, then there, if not there, then here.  But, after all, what did it matter?  She would have left this hateful place for ever to-morrow!

And then came a rather difficult moment.  She did not wish to tell her servants to-night that she was leaving The Trellis House to-morrow, and yet somehow she must convey that fact to Tremaine.

As if he could see into her mind, there came the eager question, “Can you come up to-morrow, darling?  The sooner, the better, you know—­”

She answered, “I will if you like—­at the usual time.”

He said eagerly, “You mean that train arriving at 12.30—­the one I met you by the other day?”

And again she said, “Yes.”

He asked a little anxiously, “How about money, my precious pet?  Are you all right about money?”

For once her hard, selfish heart was touched and she answered truly:  “You need not bother about that.”

And then there came a whispered, “Call me darling again, darling.”

And she just breathed the word “Darling” into the receiver, making a vague resolution as she did so that she would be, as far as would be possible to her, a good wife to this simple-hearted, big baby of a man who loved her so dearly.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Timmy went straight home.  He entered the house by one of the back ways and crept upstairs.  Late that afternoon he had gratified Nanna by sharing her high tea, and so he was not expected in the dining-room.