She left me all her fortune. Half of it would have been yours if you had been—a different sort of woman. I'd give you what would have been your share now, if you'd like to change your way of living.'

'Repent—I suppose, is what you wanted to say, Kezia. This is all so hopeless. We don't even talk the same language. I don't want Grandmother Tallis's money nor any of yours. Though you must admit,' she added, a little grimly, 'that it has been fortunate for you, from a practical point of view, that I did take—the primrose path, I suppose you'd call it, eh? You had everything, didn't you—the house, the lands, the money, father's fortune, mother's fortune, Grandmother Tallis's fortune. To whom are you going to leave it when you die?'

'To charities,' replied Kezia Faunce sternly. 'Every penny of that money will be left to do good to someone. I am quite prepared, as I said just now, to give you all you need, if you leave the stage—leave Paris.' Then, on another note, she added, 'Don't you ever feel homesick, Martha?'

Mme. Lesarge reflected. The words did take her back to certain broken dreams and odd moments of nostalgia. She had run away from home when she was sixteen, a schoolgirl home for the holidays. She had eloped with a subaltern from the neighbouring garrison. They had gone to India and in three years she had been divorced ignominiously. There had been another marriage with a husband who drank and ill-treated her, and this time a separation without a divorce. Then, a long connection with Adrian Lesarge, the French actor, who had taught her his language and his art, given her the place which she had contrived to hold since. For she was industrious, clever, and talented, and had a rare charm and radiance in her personality.

It seemed a long time ago since she had fled from Stibbards, with a veil down over her bonnet and a small case in her hand. It was very early summer, she could recall the scent of the flowering currant bushes as she had hurried through the kitchen garden to let herself out by the back door in the red-brick wall where the apricots grew.

Homesick—for those sixteen years in an English village! She remembered it as always afternoon and always sunny, quiet, with the smell of hot jam coming from the kitchen.

Kezia was watching her keenly.

'You are homesick,' she said, 'you are. Martha, why don't you come back?'

Mme. Lesarge looked up quickly, as if she wondered if these were the accents of love. Love? How could it be, or any touch of affection or any kindly feeling? Curiosity, envy, fused into hatred gazed out of Kezia's dull brown eyes. And Mme. Lesarge knew that this expression was reflected in her own gaze. Yes, envy too. There was something about Kezia's life and character which she envied; when she looked at her sister she thought of things that she had missed, just as Kezia thought of lacks in her own existence when she looked at her sister.

Each woman hated and envied in the other what she might have been—it was a complex and terrible emotion.

The actress contrived to speak lightly.

'Return! Impossible! And you know it is. You would not wish to have me at Stibbards.'

'No, I suppose not,' agreed Miss Faunce. 'You're quite right, it would be a scandal—intolerable. Unless some story could be made up or you came as a penitent.'

Mme. Lesarge laughed.

'I suppose you really are crazy enough to think that might happen—that I might come with a made-up story behind me, or as a penitent, and that you would be able to torture me day after day! We're both going crazy, I think.