“He is anxious that I should not come down to Beechfield again.  The time is so short, and there is so much to be done, that I fear I shall not see any of you before I leave for India.  I would have liked Rosamund to come to my wedding, but we shall be married very quietly, and the day and hour will probably be fixed at the last minute.

  “I am purposely not telling you where I am staying as I do not want to
  give you the bother of answering this rather unconventional letter.  As
  for presents I have always hated them.

  “All the business about The Trellis House is being done by a kind
  solicitor I know, who arranged about the lease for me.

  “Might I ask you to remember me very kindly to everybody, and to give
  my special love to Rosamund and to sweet Miss Betty?  I wish I had known
  her better.

  “Again thanking you for your kindness, and assuring you I shall always
  look back to the happy days I spent at Beechfield,

  “Believe me to remain,
   Yours very sincerely,
   Enid Crofton.”

There was a long pause.  Jack was now crumbling up his bread and then smoothing out the crumbs with a kind of mechanical, steam-roller movement of his right-hand forefinger.

Rosamund was the first to speak.  “Why, she hasn’t even told us his name!” she exclaimed.  “How very funny of her!”

And then Godfrey Radmore spoke, just a thought more sharply than usual:  “I’m not at all surprised at that.  She wants to start quite clear again.”

Betty said quietly:  “That’s natural enough, isn’t it?” But her heart was full of aching sympathy for her brother.  She felt, rather than saw, his rigid, mask-like face.

They all got up, and slowly began to disperse.  After all, there was only one among them to whom this news was of any real moment.

Janet, feeling curiously tired, went into the drawing-room.  The moment she had finished Enid Crofton’s letter she had begun to torment herself as to whether she had done right or wrong after all?

To her relief Godfrey Radmore came into the drawing-room.  “I want to put those two unfortunate people out of their misery, Janet.  Shall I tell Dolly, or will you tell her, that I want to give her a thousand pounds as a wedding present?”

Janet had very strong ideas of what was right and wrong, or perhaps it would be better to say of what was meet and proper.

“I don’t think they could take a present of that sort from you,” she said very decidedly.  “These are hard times, Godfrey, even for rich people.  But you always talk as if you were made of money!”

“Do I?”

He looked taken aback, and even hurt.

“No, no,” she said, “I don’t mean that, but I’m upset to-day.  What with one thing and another, I hardly know what I’m saying.”  She caught herself up.  “I’ll tell you what I think would be reasonable.  As you are so kind, give Dolly a hundred pounds.  It will make a real difference.”