Jenny opened the bottom drawer and took out the things that she had put ready-gloves, a little black hat, the parcel with her two pairs of shoes. She put on the hat and put the gloves into the pocket of a dark prune coat which she took out of the cupboard. She was going to be too hot in it, and it was heavy, but at this time of year you didn’t know what the weather might be going to do. And it was a good coat, new last winter. She remembered getting it in the January sales with Garsty. It had cost more than she had planned for, but Garsty had said, “It will go on for years, and you will always look nice in it, my dear.”

She took her bag and considered the other things. There was the case which she had put under the counterpane on the chair by the window. Oh, she couldn’t leave the room like that-untidy! She must put the bedspread back. Then she took up her things, the parcel with the shoes slipped over the handle of the little case, and her left hand free for the handbag. She stood with the open door of the room in her hand and looked round. Everything was quite tidy. Now she must go.

She lifted the hand with the bag in it and switched off the light. With the door shut, no one would come near her until half past seven. She had seven and a half hours’ start on any search that might be made. She felt her way to the head of the stairs and began to go down.

It was like going down into deep waters. Deep, dark waters. The darkness wasn’t frightening. It felt very safe. And behind the darkness there were all the people of her blood and her name who had lived in this house since it was built. That made her feel very safe indeed. She didn’t know where she was going or what she was going to do, but she knew who she was. She wasn’t any longer a nameless come-by-chance brought up by charity. She was Jenny Forbes, and the house and the pictures were her own.

She was half way down the stairs, when the moon came from behind a cloud. The house faced south-east, and the moon was full. The moonlight shone in through the windows above the door and to either side of it. It was so bright that it made the portraits on which it fell look as if they were alive. Jenny thought, “They are saying good-bye to me. But I shall come again.” She stood still on the half-landing and looked at the pictures. Some of them hardly showed at all, some were just shadows. Then as she turned this way and that the brightness of the moon shone down the hall to the portrait which she liked best of all, Lady Georgina Forbes, painted by a famous artist in the year of the Crimean War. A hundred years ago and she was still beautiful without a mark of age or sorrow on her, painted in her wedding-dress with flowers in her hair, smiling. Jenny said under her breath, “Good-bye, great, great-grandmother. I’ll come back some day.”

Chapter XI

The young man in the car was enjoying himself. It was a fine night very heartening to behold. The moon was out now, quite clear of the clouds. He would have liked to switch off his lights and drive through all this country by moonlight. He shook his head a little mournfully. There were so many things he would like to do, and he couldn’t do them. Not because they were difficult or impossible, but simply because you had been brought up hedged in by laws and by-laws until they had got you down. He laughed a little and considered what a modern world would be like with everyone doing as he pleased. Come to think of it, no one was ever free. Different times had their own restraints, personal, political, what have you. You were brought up in a certain code, and you kept to it. If you kicked over the traces you came to a sticky end. Each generation made its own rules, and the next one altered them. What was quite unacceptable in one generation was the fashion in the next, and so you went on.

He liked driving alone, and he liked driving by night. If you kept off the beaten track you didn’t meet anyone much after twelve o’clock. His plan was to drive within a strategic distance of Alington House and sleep out the night in the back seat of his car. Then in the morning, when a country inn would be open, he would have breakfast and from there on follow the reasonable inspiration of the moment. He wanted to see the house and the portraits. He wanted it very much. After all, if they were in any way decent people they couldn’t object to him. It wasn’t as if he was claiming anything, or wanting to claim anything. He was simply a distant connection of the family who had come into possession of some papers about the house and the people to whom it had belonged. It was natural enough that he should want to come down and see the place for himself.

He had turned rather an abrupt corner just out of a sleeping village, and a long flat stretch of road lay before him. Quite suddenly there was someone in the road. It stretched flat and open at one minute, and the next there was something there. Something? No, someone. He braked and brought the car to a standstill.

The someone was a girl. She had a case in one hand, and with the other she had signalled him to stop. He leaned out, frowning.

“You shouldn’t do that, you know.”

“But I wanted you to stop.”

“Why?” He was terse because for a moment he hadn’t been sure that he could stop in time and the road was narrow.

The girl moved from the front of the car and came round to the door on his side. In the moment that she stepped across the lighted patch of road in front of the car he saw her, and he saw that she was young and pale-or perhaps that was just the lights of the car. She came up to the window on his side and said,

“Will you please give me a lift?”

The anger had gone out of him. He said,

“Where do you want to go?”

“It doesn’t matter. I mean, just anywhere will do.”

“Are you running away?”

It was quite obvious that she was. What does one do with a stray girl who asks one to help her? He said,

“You’re running away, aren’t you? Why?” It wasn’t in the least what he had meant to say.

The moonlight shone on her face. It looked sad and rather tired. There were dark marks like smudges under her eyes. She said very earnestly,

“I’ve got to-I really have.”

It was the sort of thing that any girl would say if she had had a row with her people or with her school.

He said, “Why?” and she came nearer and dropped her voice.

“I can’t tell you. You wouldn’t believe me.”

“You might try.”

Jenny considered. All this time he was in the shadow-she couldn’t see his face. She must see him. You can’t tell whether you can trust a person whom you can’t see. She said quickly and a little breathlessly,

“Will you get out for a moment? I want to see you.”

“Why do you want to do that?”

He had a nice voice, but she must see him. She said,

“I want to know whether I can trust you.”

“Do you think you would know?”

“Oh, yes, I should know if I could see you.” There was a confident ring in her voice.

Without a word he pushed open the door and got out. He shut the door behind him, leaned against it, and said,

“Well, here I am. Take a good look and make up your mind.”

She said,

“It’s you who have to make up your mind, isn’t it?”

They stood looking at one another in the bright, clear moonlight. He heard her draw in her breath.

“Who-who are you?” she said.

“My name is Richard Forbes.”

She echoed him in a faint whisper, “Richard Forbes-”

“That is my name.”

Jenny stood still. It was unbelievable, but it had happened. Unbelievable things did happen. This one had happened. He stood there with the moonlight across his face, and she saw feature for feature the Richard Forbes who had built Alington House. The Richard Forbes in the picture had had long curling hair, and he had worn fine clothes, not a raincoat and slacks. But it was the same face, it was the same expression- the laughing look in the eyes, the humorous querk of the mouth. And then the humour faded. He had the air of being very much in earnest, and he said,