“Did you know that Dan Storran was in front to-night?” asked Gillian, as half an hour later she and Magda were driving back to Hampstead together.  She had already confided the fact of her former meeting with him in the tea-shop.

Magda’s eyes widened a little.

“No,” she said quietly.  “I think I’m glad I didn’t know.”

She was very silent throughout the remainder of the drive home and Gillian made no effort to distract her.  She herself felt disinclined to talk.  She was oppressed by the knowledge that this was the last night she and Magda would have with each other.  To-morrow Magda would be gone and one chapter of their lives together ended.  The gates of the Sisters of Penitence would close upon her and Friars’ Holm would be empty of her presence.

Everything had been said that could be said, every persuasion used.  But to each and all Magda had only answered:  “I know it’s the only thing for me to do.  It probably wouldn’t be for you, or for anyone else.  But it is for me.  So you must let me go, Gillyflower.”

Gillian dreaded the morrow with its inevitable moment of farewell.  As for Virginie, she had done little else but weep for the last three days, and although Lady Arabella had said very little, she had kissed her god-daughter good-bye with a brusqueness that veiled an inexpressible grief and tenderness.  Gillian foresaw that betwixt administering comfort to Lady Arabella and Virginie, and setting Magda’s personal affairs in order after her departure, she would have little time for the indulgence of her own individual sorrow.  Perhaps it was just as well that these tasks should devolve on her.  They would serve to occupy her thoughts.

The morning sunlight, goldenly gay, was streaming in through the windows as Magda, wrapped in a soft silken peignoir, made her way into the bathroom.  Virginie, her eyes reddened from a night’s weeping, was kneeling beside the sunken bath of green-veined marble, stirring sweet-smelling salts in to the steaming water.  Their fragrance permeated the atmosphere like incense.

“My tub ready, Virginie?” asked Magda, cheerfully.

Virginie scrambled to her feet.

“Mais oui, mademoiselle.  The bath is ready.”

Then, her face puckering up suddenly, she burst into tears and ran out of the room.  Magda smiled and sighed, then busied herself with her morning ablutions—­prolonging them a little as she realised that this was the last occasion for a whole year when she would step down into a bath prepared and perfumed for her in readiness by her maid.

A year!  It was a long time to look forward to.  So much can happen in a year.  And no one can foresee what the end may bring.

Presently she emerged from her bath, her skin gleaming like wet ivory, her dark hair sparkling with the drops of water that had splashed on to it.  As she stepped up from its green-veined depths, she caught a glimpse of herself in a panel mirror hung against the wall, and for a moment she was aware of the familiar thrill of delight in her own beauty—­in the gleaming, glowing radiance of perfectly formed, perfectly groomed flesh and blood.