“Aren’t you going to see him out?” Constance whispered to Sophia, who had shaken hands with him at the drawingroom door.  It was Sophia who did the running about, owing to the state of Constance’s sciatic nerve.  Constance had, indeed, become extraordinarily inert, leaving everything to Sophia.

Sophia shook her head.  She hesitated; then approached Constance, holding out her hand and disclosing the crumpled telegram.

“Look at that!” said she.

Her face frightened Constance, who was always expectant of new anxieties and troubles.  Constance straightened out the paper with difficulty, and read—­

“Mr. Gerald Scales is dangerously ill here.  Boldero, 49, Deansgate, Manchester.”

All through the inexpressibly tedious and quite unnecessary call of Dr. Stirling—­(Why had he chosen to call just then?  Neither of them was ill)—­Sophia had held that telegram concealed in her hand and its information concealed in her heart.  She had kept her head up, offering a calm front to the world.  She had given no hint of the terrible explosion—­for an explosion it was.  Constance was astounded at her sister’s self-control, which entirely passed her comprehension.  Constance felt that worries would never cease, but would rather go on multiplying until death ended all.  First, there had been the frightful worry of the servant; then the extremely distressing death and burial of Spot—­and now it was Gerald Scales turning up again!  With what violence was the direction of their thoughts now shifted!  The wickedness of maids was a trifle; the death of pets was a trifle.  But the reappearance of Gerald Scales!  That involved the possibility of consequences which could not even be named, so afflictive was the mere prospect to them.  Constance was speechless, and she saw that Sophia was also speechless.

Of course the event had been bound to happen.  People do not vanish never to be heard of again.  The time surely arrives when the secret is revealed.  So Sophia said to herself—­now!

She had always refused to consider the effect of Gerald’s reappearance.  She had put the idea of it away from her, determined to convince herself that she had done with him finally and for ever.  She had forgotten him.  It was years since he had ceased to disturb her thoughts—­many years.  “He must be dead,” she had persuaded herself.  “It is inconceivable that he should have lived on and never come across me.  If he had been alive and learnt that I had made money, he would assuredly have come to me.  No, he must be dead!”

And he was not dead!  The brief telegram overwhelmingly shocked her.  Her life had been calm, regular, monotonous.  And now it was thrown into an indescribable turmoil by five words of a telegram, suddenly, with no warning whatever.  Sophia had the right to say to herself:  “I have had my share of trouble, and more than my share!” The end of her life promised to be as awful as the beginning.  The