The chance encounter on Monday with Hugh Carnaby made her think of Sibyl, and she could not rest until she had endeavoured to learn something of Sibyl’s movements.  As Carnaby was leaving town, his wife would be free; and how did Sibyl use her freedom?  On that subject Mrs Strangeways had a decided opinion, and her knowledge of the world made it more than probable that she was right.  Without any scheme of espionage, obeying her instinct of jealous enmity, Alma hastened to Oxford and Cambridge Mansions.  But Sibyl had left home, and —­ was not expected to return that night.

How she spent the next few hours Alma could but dimly remember.  It was a vortex of wretchedness.  As dark fell she found herself at the gate leading to the bungalow, lurking, listening, waiting for courage to go farther.  She stole at length over the grass behind the bushes, until she could see the lighted window of Redgrave’s study.  The window was open.  She crept nearer and nearer, till she was actually in the veranda and looking into the room.  Redgrave sat within, smoking and reading a newspaper.  She purposely made a movement which drew his attention.

How would it have ended but for Hugh Carnaby?

Beyond ascertaining that Sibyl was not there, she had of course discovered nothing of what she wished to know.  As likely as not she had come too early.  Redgrave’s behaviour when she drew his attention suggested that such a sound at the open window did not greatly surprise him; the surprise appeared when he saw who stood there —­ surprise and momentary embarrassment, which would be natural enough if he expected a different visitor.  And he was so anxious that she should come in at once.  Had she done so, Redgrave’s life would have been saved; but ——­

Its having been publicly proved that Mrs. Carnaby was then far away from Wimbledon did not tend to shake Alma’s conviction.  The summons to her mother’s deathbed had disturbed Sibyl’s arrangements, that was all.  Most luckily for her, as it turned out.  But women of that kind (said Alma bitterly) are favoured by fortune.

Locked in a drawer of her writing-table lay a bundle of letters and papers which had come to her immediately after the concert.  To none of the letters had she replied; it was time for her to go through them, and answer, with due apologies, those which deserved an answer.  Several did not; they were from people whom she hoped never to see again —­ people who wrote in fulsome terms, because they fancied she would become a celebrity.  The news of her breakdown had appeared in a few newspapers, and brought her letters of sympathy; these also lay unanswered.  On a day of late autumn she brought herself to the task of looking through this correspondence, and in the end she burnt it all.  Among the half-dozen people to whom she decided to write was Felix Dymes; not out of gratitude, or any feeling of friendliness, but because she could not overcome a certain fear of the man.  He was capable of any meanness, perhaps of villainy; and perhaps he harboured malice against her, seeing that she had foiled him to the last.  She penned a few lines asking him to let her have a complete statement of the financial results of her recital, which it seemed strange that he had not sent already.