When he had said these two words his lips closed hard.

Inez leaned right forward, crowding Lilla.

“Well, there must be plenty of other things that you can ask her-things which only you or she can know anything about. After all, you had a honeymoon, didn’t you?”

Thomas Jocelyn looked round sharply. Mr. Codrington put up a restraining hand. But before anyone could speak Anne pushed back her chair. Still smiling and without hurry, she passed round the end of the table and laid a hand on Philip’s shoulder. When she spoke her voice had a note of tender amusement.

“Cousin Inez wants you to feel quite sure that I went on that honeymoon. Don’t you think that the family would be rather de trop? I mean-well, even the kindest cousin isn’t exactly welcome on a honeymoon. Wouldn’t it be a good plan if we went away and had this out together?”

Without waiting for an answer she moved towards the door. After a moment Philip got up and followed her. They went out of the room together. The door fell to behind them.

Everyone except Inez felt a sense of relief. Everyone also felt that Anne had shown a good deal of tact and breeding, qualities in which Miss Jocelyn was painfully deficient.

Emmeline raised her fine eyebrows and said, “Really!”

“Really what, Emmeline? You know as well as I do that the only definite proof would be something that was absolutely private between them. What’s the good of saying ‘Really!’ at me just because you haven’t got as much courage as I have? After all, we’re here to find out the truth, aren’t we? And I’d like to know how else you think we’re going to do it. What is the good of being mealy-mouthed? If she can tell Philip things which only his wife could have known, why, then she is Anne. But if she can’t, why, then she isn’t.”

It was while Inez was still speaking that Lilla got up and came round the table to sit by Lyndall. She put a small warm hand over the clenched fingers in Lyndall’s lap and found them icy cold.

“Lyn-I do so want you to come up and stay with me. Perry goes off again tomorrow. Couldn’t you come back with us?”

Without looking at her Lyndall said,

“Your last evening? Oh, no.”

“Tomorrow then? Do be an angel and help me out! Cousin Inez has her eye on our spare room. She doesn’t like being evacuated to Little Claybury. She thinks there isn’t going to be any more bombing and she wants to get back to town, and I don’t really think I can bear it.”

They spoke behind a barrage of voices. Everyone except Perry and Mr. Elvery was talking now. Lyndall said, quick and low,

“Yes, I’ll come.”

“I shall love to have you.”

The family was still talking when the door opened and Anne came in with Philip behind her. Anne was smiling, and Philip deadly pale. She went back to her place and sat down, but he remained standing. As everyone turned and looked at him, he said,

“I made a mistake. I must have made one three years ago. I have to beg her pardon. She is Anne.”

CHAPTER 13

After all nobody stayed the night. The only person who showed any disposition to do so was Inez, but receiving no encouragement, she departed as she had come, with Perry and Lilla.

A fleeting qualm of conscience prompted Milly Armitage to draw Lilla aside.

“Look here, I don’t want her-we’ve got enough on our hands without Inez. But if it means that she’s going to land herself on you and spoil the last evening of Perry’s leave, well, I’ll have her. I suppose if it comes to that, it isn’t really for me to say. If Anne’s back, it’s her house and I’m only a visitor.”

Lilla looked at her with affection,

“Anyone would love to have you as a visitor. And it’s quite all right about Cousin Inez, because she’s staying with her friend Roberta Loam, and they haven’t quarrelled yet, though I think they’re on the brink. Lyn says she’ll come to me tomorrow, so that’s all quite safe and fixed. What are you going to do?”

Milly Armitage made a face.

“Philip wants me to stay on here. Of course I can’t-at least I don’t see how I can-unless Anne wants me too. She says she does, so I suppose I’ll have to try it for a bit. None of it’s easy, is it?”

Lilla said, “No.” Then she squeezed her hands and kissed her very warmly indeed.

Philip came back from seeing them off, with the remark that his cousin Inez was without exception the most disagreeable woman he had ever met. She had been arch with him on the doorstep, had shaken those dreadful curls at him, and screamed parting jocosities about a second honeymoon from the window of the moving taxi.

“Theresa was bad enough. She bounced, and quarrelled, and interfered, but she had an awful sort joie-de-vivre. And she wasn’t vindictive, and she didn’t dye her hair-at least she hadn’t dyed it last time I saw her, because I remember its looking like a large grey bird’s nest.”

“At our wedding,” said Anne. She used a light, pleased voice and spoke as if there had never been a cloud between them since that wedding-day.

Then, before Philip’s silence could become noticeable, she was making herself charming to the Thomas Jocelyns and Mr. Codrington. She was no longer “the claimant” on her probation, but very much Anne Jocelyn speeding the parting guests from Jocelyn’s Holt.

It was some hours later, in the empty time before the evening meal, that Philip found Lyndall in the parlour alone. She had changed into a dark red house-gown which caught the firelight and reflected it back from warm velvet folds. Only one lamp was on, the shaded one by the far window. It showed Lyndall in her red dress crouched forward over the fire with both hands stretched to the blaze. He took a moment watching her. Then he came up to the hearth and stood there.

“I want to talk to you.”

She did not move, but her hands shook a little. She said,

“Yes.”

He looked, not at her, but down into the fire.

“Everything in my mind says that she is Anne-reason, logic, evidence. And everything else keeps shouting, ‘She’s a stranger.’ What else does one do?”

Lyndall said in a small voice like a tired child,

“I can’t tell you that-can I?”

“No. I suppose the fact of the matter is that we are strangers. The point at which we touched is a long way behind us both. We have gone off in different directions. I can’t see any meeting-point ahead. She thinks there might be one, and that we owe it to each other to try and come together again. I have told her that she owes me nothing. I can’t tell her that I don’t owe her anything either. From her point of view I owe her a good deal. However it came about, I did fail her-she was left in danger whilst I went back to safety.”

“Philip!” She turned round, her eyes imploring him.

“Lyn, don’t you see how it must have looked to her-how it might be made to look to anyone? I came away without her-I identified another woman’s body as hers-and I came in for every penny of her money. When she comes home again, you recognize her, Aunt Milly recognizes her-Mrs. Ramage, Mr. Codrington, the whole family recognize her. But I stick out, I go on saying she isn’t Anne, until the weight of the evidence overbears me by main force. I don’t need to dot the i’s or cross the t’s, do I? You see what it looks like- I deserted her, I lied about it, I denied her.”

“Philip-please-”

The rapid, bitter flow of words was broken, but only for a moment. He stared down at her as if he saw, not her, but some fantastic abyss whose unsteady edge might yet give way and launch him headlong.

“Don’t you see? If you don’t, Mr. Codrington does. He told me in so many words how grateful I ought to be for the way in which she is taking it. If she had chosen to bring a case, if she had shown resentment, if she hadn’t displayed the most extraordinary forbearance, my name would be mud. She wants to make it up, she wants to be friends, she wants us to give each other a chance. She doesn’t suggest our living together now. She only asks that we should to a normal and reasonable extent live under the same roof-show ourselves together in public-until all the talk and gossip has died down. What can I do? I can’t refuse her that-can I?”