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go of himself, and when I found he didn’t I wrote and asked him to come and he told me—yesterday when he was with me, you know—how it had happened and the horrible ill-luck about the ring and your seeing the initials.—I saw that ring, while we played bridge that night. I gave it to him in Paris; we found it together in an old shop and I never dreamed he would have gone on wearing it.—He gave me one too; a beautiful ring; but I went out in Paris, after parting from him, and threw it into the Seine. What a little fool I was! But I couldn’t wear it myself and I couldn’t bear to think of anybody else wearing it.—Well—I seemed to see nothing while we played and while I made those imbecile mistakes—except that ring of mine on his finger.—He is going off first thing to-morrow morning, Monica. He said at once that he would go. “Give me one day to pack and settle accounts,” he said, “and none of you will ever see me again.” He left me, of course, before Clive got back. He never made muddles about things like that.—But it was too late, in a way. I mean, Clive found me crying. Can you understand that?’ Hester’s arm was steady under her mother-in-law’s hand, but Monica now saw that a slow flush had crept up to her cheek. ‘I feel as if you would. I feel as if you would under-