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Dixon and Monica felt that Hester’s eye fixed itself upon these neighbours with a look of desperation. ‘We will cut across the Green here,’ she said. ‘Rosemary won’t follow us. We don’t want to listen to her latest impressions of Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, do we?’

‘No; we don’t,’ said Hester, with a broken laugh, and Monica now felt that it was she who watched over Hester.

They crossed the Green and reached safety at the gate. The fountain was playing and Hester was looking at it remembering, perhaps, the afternoon of its release: ‘When will you come and see Clive?’ she asked.

‘Will he want to see me?’ Monica questioned. She could watch over Hester for these last steps, but she knew that she had no strength left in her and she laid her hand on the gate-post as she spoke.

‘Of course he’ll want to see you. More than anything,’ said Hester. ‘But you are neither of you fit for it to-day. Clive is in bed with a temperature. To-morrow will be better and I’ll tell him that I’ve had a talk with you and that you understand everything and that he mustn’t brood any more on what happened between you yesterday.—That will be right, won’t it?’