A little withdrawn from this shaft of brightness stood two figures, a dowdy little woman and a hunchbacked boy.  The woman held some ferns in her hand, and the boy was sitting down and resting his chin on his hands, which were folded on the top of a stick.

“Stop here for a moment,” Bettina said to the coachman.  “I want to ask that woman a question.”

She had thought that she might discover if her sister was at the Court.  She realised that to know would be a point of advantage.  She leaned forward and spoke.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, “I wonder if you can tell me——­”

The woman came forward a little.  She had a listless step and a faded, listless face.

“What did you ask?” she said.

Betty leaned still further forward.

“Can you tell me——­” she began and stopped.  A sense of stricture in the throat stopped her, as her eyes took in the washed-out colour of the thin face, the washed-out colour of the thin hair—­thin drab hair, dragged in straight, hard unbecomingness from the forehead and cheeks.

Was it true that her heart was thumping, as she had heard it said that agitation made hearts thump?

She began again.

“Can you—­tell me if—­Lady Anstruthers is at home?” she inquired.  As she said it she felt the blood surge up from the furious heart, and the hand she had laid on the handle of the door of the brougham clutched it involuntarily.

The dowdy little woman answered her indifferently, staring at her a little.

“I am Lady Anstruthers,” she said.

Bettina opened the carriage door and stood upon the ground.

“Go on to the house,” she gave order to the coachman, and, with a somewhat startled look, he drove away.

“Rosy!” Bettina’s voice was a hushed, almost awed, thing.  “You are Rosy?”

The faded little wreck of a creature began to look frightened.

“Rosy!” she repeated, with a small, wry, painful smile.

She was the next moment held in the folding of strong, young arms, against a quickly beating heart.  She was being wildly kissed, and the very air seemed rich with warmth and life.

“I am Betty,” she heard.  “Look at me, Rosy!  I am Betty.  Look at me and remember!”

Lady Anstruthers gasped, and broke into a faint, hysteric laugh.  She suddenly clutched at Bettina’s arm.  For a minute her gaze was wild as she looked up.

“Betty,” she cried out.  “No!  No!  No!  I can’t believe it!  I can’t!  I can’t!”

That just this thing could have taken place in her, Bettina had never thought.  As she had reflected on her way from the station, the impossible is what one finds one’s self face to face with.  Twelve years should not have changed a pretty blonde thing of nineteen to a worn, unintelligent-looking dowdy of the order of dowdiness which seems to have lived beyond age and sex.  She looked even stupid, or at least stupefied.  At this moment she was a silly, middle-aged woman, who did not know what to do.  For a few seconds Bettina wondered if she was glad to see her, or only felt awkward and unequal to the situation.