Felsby did not for a moment suspect that Emily was privileged to know how Mr. Standon slept.

Standon, on his side, also realized that the visit had not worked out as well as had been hoped, but he was less disappointed than Emily because he had found the entire weekend rather a bore—awful house, undistinguished food, uncouth servants, wet days, bleak scenery, and a precocious brat of a girl on holiday from a boarding- school who (he could see) continually got on her mother’s nerves. Altogether he thought Emily much more fun in Baron’s Court, and hoped that all their subsequent meetings would be on his own ground. He really DID like her, and forbore to sponge more than a poor artist must on a better-off woman. (For instance, she was going to buy him a motor-car, but in return he had promised to teach her to drive.) Knowing all about her past, having investigated it from newspaper files long before she told him, he could feel with some justification that he was being as good to her as to himself.

As for Livia, she immediately connected Mr. Standon in her mind with the secret, or the mystery, or whatever it was—the more so as he was always whispering privately to her mother—MORE secrets, MORE mystery. And Emily, who had romantically set store on Livia liking him, was chagrined that the girl didn’t, and told her (truthfully but far too outspokenly on one occasion) that OF COURSE she wasn’t going to marry Mr. Standon. Whereupon Livia, surprised at the denial of something that had not been suggested, could feel only extra certainty that there WAS something between them— SOMETHING, at any rate. A few terms of Cheldean had even given her a vague idea of what, and because she did not like Mr. Standon, she did not like the idea of that either. Whereupon a rift opened between mother and daughter, more insidious because neither would tackle it frankly; it was as if they understood each other too well, but also not enough. Anyhow, Livia went back to Cheldean with thoughts that cast a shadow over a term that happened to be her last. The shadow made it hard for her to write home, and once, when she had composed a letter in which she tried to be affectionate, a feeling of guilt, almost of shame, made her tear it up.

It was Livia’s last term at Cheldean because of another unpleasant thing that happened.

For some time there had been an epidemic of minor thieving on the school premises—money and small articles missing from dormitories, coats left in the locker-room, and so on—the sort of thing that, if it for long goes undetected, can poison the relationships of all concerned— pupils, teaching staff, and school servants. Miss Williams, the Cheldean headmistress, had done all she could to probe and investigate, yet the thefts continued, culminating in the disappearance of a wrist-watch belonging to Livia’s best friend. When news of this reached Miss Williams she summoned the whole school into the main hall—an event which, from its rarity, evoked an atmosphere of heightened tension.

Miss Williams began by saying that, being convinced the thefts had been perpetrated by one of the girls, she had decided to call in a detective who would doubtless discover the culprit, whoever she was, without delay. She (Miss Williams) therefore appealed to this culprit (again WHOEVER SHE WAS) to come forward and confess, thus avoiding the need for distasteful outside publicity, and also—here Miss Williams began to glare round the room —earning perhaps some remission of penalty.

This appeal was followed by a long and, to Livia, terribly dramatic silence during which the word “detective”, as spoken by Miss Williams, turned somersaults in her mind.

Then: “Well, girls? How long is one of you going to keep me waiting?”

Still silence.

Miss Williams glared round again before raising her voice a notch higher. “Girls… GIRLS… I simply cannot believe this. Surely I am to get an answer?… Remember—I am particularly addressing myself to ONE of you —to one of you who is a THIEF—HERE—NOW—in this hall! Some of you must be so close that you could TOUCH her…”

Suddenly Livia felt herself melting into a warmth that seemed to run liquid in her limbs; she could not check it, and in excitement let go a book she was carrying; everyone near her turned to stare, and she knew that her face was already brick-red.

“Come now, girls… I will wait for sixty seconds and no longer…” Miss Williams then pulled an old-fashioned gold watch on a long chain from some pocket of her mannish attire and held it conspicuously in the palm of her hand. “TEN seconds already… TWENTY… THIRTY…” And then, in a quite different voice: “Dear me… will somebody go after Olivia?”

Somebody did, and presently Livia was sitting, limp and still, on the couch in Miss Williams’ study, while Miss Williams, stiff and fidgety, drummed her bony fingers on the desk-top.

“But, Olivia… why do you keep on saying you didn’t do it?”

“I didn’t, Miss Williams. You can punish me if you like—I’m not afraid. But I really didn’t do it.”

“But nobody’s even accusing you—nobody ever HAS accused you!”

“They thought it was me—they all saw how I looked—and then when I dropped the book—”

“My dear child, if they did think you behaved suspiciously, whom have you to blame but yourself? What made you run out of the hall like that? Surely, if you knew you weren’t guilty—”

“I knew, Miss Williams, but I couldn’t help it. I wasn’t guilty, and yet —and yet—”

“Yes, Olivia?”

“I FELT guilty.”

Miss Williams’s eyes and voice, till then sympathetic, now chilled over. “I cannot understand how you could FEEL guilty unless you WERE guilty,” she said after a pause.

“But I did, Miss Williams. I feel guilty—often—like that. Punish me if you like, though. I don’t care.”

After another pause Miss Williams replied: “Suppose we say no more about it for the time being.”

And there the matter had to remain, for the plain fact was that Miss Williams did not know whether Livia was guilty or not. She rather liked the girl, who had never been in any serious trouble before; yet there was something odd about her, something unpredictable; yet also something stoic —which was another thing Miss Williams rather liked. She could not avoid thinking of the secret that Livia did not know, and perhaps ought to know, at her age… or DID she know already… partly… in the half- guessing way that was the worst way to get to know anything? That feeling of guilt, for instance (assuming there had been no grounds for it at Cheldean) —could it be that Livia suspected something in her own family to which guilt attached, and (by a curious psychological twist) was becoming herself infected by it? Miss Williams had not received a very good impression of Mrs. Channing from the correspondence they had had; she seemed a weak, dilatory person, incapable of facing her own or her daughter’s problems with any kind of fortitude. Whereas fortitude, and problems, were Miss Williams’s specialties—whether, for instance, a head-mistress should tell one of her girls something she had promised not to tell, if she believed it was in the girl’s best interest? For several weeks Miss Williams debated this problem with herself, while she continued to find things likable in Livia; she even admired the girl for the way she faced up to the deepening mistrust with which the school as a whole regarded her; she admired the girl’s proud yet stricken eyes as she continued to take part in games and lessons; but she had had enough experience as a schoolmistress to know that nothing but absolute proof of someone else’s guilt could ever put things right, and if this did not soon appear, then there would arise a final problem— could Livia remain at Cheldean without harm to herself and to the morale of the school?

One day towards the end of term Miss Williams reached a decision. She called the girl into her room and very simply told her the plain truth about her father. There was no scene, but after a long pause Livia said: “Can I go home now, Miss Williams?”

“HOME? You mean—to your mother?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you want to go home?”

“I—I MUST go. Everything’s different.