One must never yield to fancies, though—’

Frances looked away towards the windows; she seemed disappointed a

little.

‘After our thickly-populated Chelsea,’ I went on quickly, ‘it seems

isolated here.’

But she did not turn back, and clearly I was saying the wrong

thing. A wave of pity rushed suddenly over me. Was she really

frightened, perhaps? She was imaginative, I knew, but never moody;

common sense was strong in her, though she had her times of

hypersensitiveness. I caught the echo of some unreasoning, big alarm

in her. She stood there, gazing across my balcony towards the sea of

wooded country that spread dim and vague in the obscurity of the dusk.

The deepening shadows entered the room, I fancied, from the grounds

below. Following her abstracted gaze a moment, I experienced a curious

sharp desire to leave, to escape. Out yonder was wind and space and

freedom. This enormous building was oppressive, silent, still.

Great catacombs occured to me, things beneath the ground,

imprisonment and capture. I believe I even shuddered a little.

I touched her shoulder. She turned round slowly, and we looked with

a certain deliberation into each other’s eyes.

‘Fanny,’ I asked, more gravely than I intended, ‘you are not

frightened, are you? Nothing has happened, has it?’

She replied with emphasis, ‘Of course not! How could it—I mean,

why should I?’ She stammered, as though the wrong sentence flustered

her a second. ‘It’s simply—that I have this ter—this dislike of

sleeping alone.’

Naturally, my first thought was how easy it would be to cut our

visit short. But I did not say this. Had it been a true solution,

Frances would have said it for me long ago.

‘Wouldn’t Mabel double-up with you?’ I said instead, ‘or give you

an adjoining room, so that you could leave the door between you open?

There’s space enough, heaven knows.’

And then, as the gong sounded in the hall below for dinner, she

said, as with an effort, this thing:

‘Mabel did ask me—on the third night—after I had told her. But I

declined.’

‘You’d rather be alone than with her?’ I asked, with a certain

relief.

Her reply was so gravely given, a child would have known there was

more behind it: ‘Not that; but that she did not really want it.’

I had a moment’s intuition and acted on it impulsively. ‘She feels

it too, perhaps, but wishes to face it by herself—and get over it?’

My sister bowed her head, and the gesture made me realise of a

sudden how grave and solemn our talk had grown, as though some

portentous thing were under discussion. It had come of

itself—indefinite as a gradual change of temperature. Yet neither of

us knew its nature, for apparently neither of us could state it

plainly. Nothing happened, even in our words.

‘That was my impression,’ she said, ‘—that if she yields to it she

encourages it. And a habit forms so easily. Just think,’ she added

with a faint smile that was the first sign of lightness she had yet

betrayed, ‘what a nuisance it would be—everywhere—if everybody was

afraid of being alone—like that.’

I snatched readily at the chance. We laughed a little, though it

was a quiet kind of laughter that seemed wrong. I took her arm and led

her towards the door.