There came back to Enid Crofton the very last words uttered by Piper, the clever, capable man who, after having been Colonel Crofton’s batman in the War, had become their general factotum in Essex:—­“Don’t you go and be startled, ma’am, if you see the very spit of Dandy in this ’ere village!  As me and your new lad was cleaning out the stable-yard this morning, a young gentleman came in with a dog as was ’is exact image.  After a bit o’course, I remembered as what we’d sent one of Juno’s and Dandy’s pups to a place called Beechfield this time last year—­’tis that pup grown into a dog without a doubt!”

It was certainly a bit of rank bad luck that there should be here, in Beechfield, a dog which, whenever she saw it, brought the image of her dead husband so vividly before her.

She had just settled herself down, and was turning over the leaves of one of the many picture papers which Tremaine had bought for her on their jolly little journey on the day of her arrival at The Trellis House, when there came a ring at the door.

Who could it be coming so late—­close to seven o’clock?  Enid Crofton got up, feeling vaguely disturbed.

The new maid brought in a reply-paid telegram, and Mrs. Crofton tore open the orange envelope with just a faint premonition that something disagreeable was going to happen:—­“May I come and stay with you for the week-end?  Have just arrived in England.  Alice Crofton.”

Thank Heaven she had been wrong as to her premonition!  This portended nothing disagreeable—­only something unexpected.  The sender of this telegram was the kind, opulent sister-in-law whom she always thought of as “Miss Crofton.”

Going over to her toy writing-table, she quickly wrote on the reply-paid form:—­“Miss Crofton, Buck’s Hotel, Dover Street.  Yes, delighted.  Do come to-morrow morning.  Excellent eleven o’clock train from Waterloo.—­Enid.”

As she settled herself by the fire she told herself that a visit from Miss Crofton might be quite a good thing—­so far as Beechfield was concerned.  Her associations with her husband’s sister were wholly pleasant.  For one thing, Alice Crofton was well off, and Enid instinctively respected, and felt interested in, any possessor of money.  What a pity it was that Colonel Crofton had not had a fairy godmother!  His only sister had been left L3,000 a year by a godmother, and she lived the agreeable life so many Englishwomen of her type and class live on the Continent.  While her real home was in Florence, she often travelled, and during the War she had settled down in Paris, giving many hours of each day to one of the British hospitals there.

The young widow’s mind flew back to her one meeting with Alice Crofton.  It was during her brief engagement to Colonel Crofton, and the latter’s sister, without being over cordial, had been quite pleasant to the startlingly pretty little woman, who had made such a fool of her brother.