“But you wouldn’t do it, Philippa.  You know that you wouldn’t!” Helen objected.  “You may play with the idea in your mind, but that’s just as far as you’d ever get.”

Philippa looked her friend steadily in the face.  “I disagree with you, Helen,” she said.  Helen set down the glass which she had been in the act of raising to her lips.  It was her first really serious intimation of the tragedy which hovered over her future sister-in-law’s life.  Somehow or other, Philippa had seemed, even to her, so far removed from that strenuous world of over-drugged, over-excited feminine decadence, to whom the changing of a husband or a lover is merely an incident in the day’s excitements.  Philippa, with her frail and almost flowerlike beauty, her love of the wholesome ways of life, and her strong affections, represented other things.  Now, for the first time, Helen was really afraid, afraid for her friend.

“But you couldn’t ever—­you wouldn’t leave Henry!”

Philippa seemed to find nothing monstrous in the idea.

“That is just what I am seriously thinking of doing,” she confided.

Helen affected to laugh, but her mirth was obviously forced.  Their conversation ceased perforce with the return of Mills into the room.

Then the wonderful thing happened.  The windows of the dining room faced the drive to the house and both women could clearly see a motor car turn in at the gate and stop at the front door.  It was obviously a hired car, as the driver was not in livery, but the tall, mulled-up figure in unfamiliar clothes who occupied the front seat was for the moment a mystery to them.  Only Helen seemed to have some wonderful premonition of the truth, a premonition which she was afraid to admit even to herself.  Her hand began to shake.  Philippa looked at her in amazement.

“You look as though you had seen a ghost, Helen!” she exclaimed.  “Who on earth can it be, coming at this time of the day?”

Helen was speechless, and Philippa divined at once the cause of her agitation.  She sprang to her feet.

“Helen, you don’t imagine—­” she gasped.  “Listen!”

There was a voice in the hail—­a familiar voice, though strained a little and hoarse; Mills’ decorous greetings, agitated but fervent.  And then—­Major Richard Felstead!

“Dick!” Helen screamed, as she threw herself into his arms.  “Oh, Dick!  Dick!”

It was an incoherent, breathless moment.  Somehow or other, Philippa found herself sharing her brother’s embrace.  Then the fire of questions and answers was presently interrupted by Mills, triumphantly bearing in a fresh dish of curry.

“What will the Major take to drink, your ladyship?” he asked.

Felstead laughed a little chokingly.

“Upon my word, there’s something wonderfully sound about Mills!” he said.  “It’s a ghoulish thing to ask for in the middle of the day, isn’t it, Philippa, but can I have some champagne?”