God knew she had been loyal to him in the beginning.  She had closed her eyes.  She had forbidden her senses to take evidence against him.  She had been loyal all through, loyal to the very end.  She had lied for him.  If, indeed, she had lied.  In denying Lady Cayley’s statements, she had denied her right to make them, that was all.

Her mind, active now, went backwards and forwards over the chain of evidence, testing each link in turn.  All held.  It was all true.  She had always known it.

Then she remembered that she and Peggy would be going away to-morrow.  That was well.  It was the best thing she could do.  Later on, when they were home again, it would be time enough to make up her mind as to what she could do.  If there was anything to be done.

Until then she would not see him.  They would be gone to-morrow before he could come home.  Unless he saw them off at the station.  She would avoid that by taking an earlier train.  Then she would write to him.  No; she would not write.  What they would have to say to each other must be said face to face.  She did not know what she would say.

She dragged herself upstairs to the nursery, where the packing had been begun.  The room was empty.  Nanna had gone down to her supper.

Anne’s heart melted.  Peggy had been playing at packing.  The little lamb had gathered together on the table a heap of her beloved toys, things which it would have broken her heart to part from.

Her little trunk lay open on the floor, packed already.  The embroidered frock lay uppermost, carefully folded, not to be crushed.  At the sight of it Anne’s brain flared in anger.

A bright fire burned in the grate.  She picked up the frock; she took a pair of scissors and cut it in several places at the neck, then tore it to pieces with strong, determined hands.  She threw the tatters on the fire; she watched them consume; she raked out their ashes with the tongs, and tore them again.  Then she packed Peggy’s toys tenderly in the little trunk, her heart melting over them.  She closed the lid of the trunk, strapped it, and turned the key in the lock.

Then, crawling on slow, quiet feet, she went to bed.  Undressing vexed her.  She, once so careful and punctilious, slipped her clothes like a tired Magdalen, and let them fall from her and lie where they fell.  Her nightgown gaped unbuttoned at her throat.  Her long hair lay scattered on her pillow, unbrushed, unbraided.  Her white face stared to the ceiling.  She was too spent to pray.

When she lay down, reality gripped her.  And, with it, her imagination rose up, a thing no longer crude, but full-grown, large-eyed, and powerful.  It possessed itself of her tragedy.  She had lain thus, nearly nine years ago, in that room at Scarby, thinking terrible thoughts.  Now she saw terrible things.

Peggy stirred in her sleep, and crept from her cot into her mother’s bed.