Her little soul--a tiny scrap of a thing in that vague prison of dull flesh--was suddenly wounded, desperately hurt by the only weapon that could ever have found it.

"Clare!" that soul whispered, "not gone! It's not possible--it can't be--it can't be!"

Peter, without moving, spoke to her.

"It's you that have sent her away. It's all your doing--all your doing--"

She scarcely seemed to realise him, although her eyes never left his face--she came up to Bobby, her hands out:

"Bobby--please, please--tell me. This is absurd--there's a mistake.

Clare, Clare would never do a thing like that--never leave me like that--why--" and her voice rose--"I've loved her--I've loved her as no mother ever loved her girl--she's been everything to me. She knows it--why she often says that I'm the only one who loves her. She'd never go--"

Then Peter came forward from the wall, muttering, waving his hands at her--"It's you! You! You! You've driven her to this--you and your cursed interference. You took her from me--you told her to deceive me in everything. You taught her to lie and trick. She loved me before you came into it. Now be proud, if you like--now be proud. God damn you, for making your daughter into a whore--That's what you've done, you with your flat face, your filthy flat face--you've made your daughter a whore, I tell you--and it's nothing but you--you--you--!"

He lifted his hand as though he would strike her across the face. She said nothing but started back with her hands up as though to protect herself. He did not strike her. His hand fell. But she, as though she had felt a blow had her hand held to her face.

He stood over her for a moment laughing, his head flung back. Then still laughing he went away from them out into the hall.

Then, through the open door they heard him. He passed through the upper rooms crying out as he went--"Clare! Clare! Where are you? Come down!

They're here for dinner! You're wanted! It's time, Clare!--where are you? Clare! Clare!"

They heard him, knocking furniture over as he went. Then there was silence. Mrs. Rossiter seemed, at that, to come to herself. She stood up, feeling her cheek.

"It's sent him off his head, Bobby. Go after him. He'll hurt himself."

Then as though to herself, she went on--"I must find Clare--she'll be in Paris, I suppose. I must go and find her, Bobby. She'll want me badly."

She went quietly from the room, still with her hand to her cheek. She listened for a moment in the hall.

She turned round to Bobby:

"It doesn't say--the letter--where Clare's gone?"

"No--only Paris."

He helped her on with her cloak and opened the front door for her. She slipped away down the street.

Bobby turned back and saw that Peter was coming down the stairs. But now the fury had all died from his face, only that look, as of some animal wounded to death, a look that was so deep and terrible as almost to give his white face no expression at all, was with him.

It had been with him at Stephen's death, it was with him far more intensely now. He looked at Bobby.

"She's gone," in a tired, dull voice as of some one nearly asleep, "gone to Cardillac. I loved Cards--and all the time he loved Clare. I loved Clare and all the time she loved Cards. It's damned funny isn't it, Bobby, old man?"

He stood facing him in the hall, no part of him moving except his mouth.

"She says I treated her like a brute. I don't think I did. She says there was something I did one night--I don't know. I've never done anything--I've never been with another woman--something about a cab--Perhaps it was poor Rose Bennett. Poor Rose Bennett--damned unhappy--so am I--so am I. I'm a lonely fellow--I always have been!"

He went past Bobby, back into the little drawing-room. Bobby followed him.

He turned round.

"You can go now, Bobby. I shan't want you any more."

"No, I'm going to stay."

"I don't want you--I don't want any one."

"I'm going to stay."

"I'd rather you went, please."

"I'm going to stay."

Peter paid no more attention. He went and sat down on a chair by the window. Bobby sat down on a chair near him.

Once Peter said: "They took my baby. They took my work. They've taken my wife. They're too much for me. I'm beaten."

Then there was absolute silence in the house. The servants, who had heard the tumbling of the furniture, crept, frightened to bed.

Thus The Roundabout, dark, utterly without sound, stayed through the night. Once, from the chair by the window in the little drawing-room a voice said, "I'm going back to Scaw House--to my father. I'm going back--to all of them."

During many hours the little silver clock ticked cheerfully, seeing perhaps with its little bright eyes, the two dark figures and wondering what they did there.

BOOK IV -- SCAW HOUSE

CHAPTER I

THE SEA

I

Peter Westcott was dead.

They put his body into the 11.50 from Paddington.

II

It was a day of high, swinging winds, of dappled skies, of shining gleaming water. Bunches now and again of heavy black clouds clustered on the horizon, the cows and horses in the fields were sharply defined, standing out rigidly against a distant background. The sun came and was gone, laughed and was instantly hidden, turned the world from light to shadow and from shadow back to light again.

Peter's body was alone in the compartment. It was propped up against red velvet that yielded with a hard, clenched resistance, something uncomfortable, had the body minded. The eyes of the body were the high blank windows of a deserted house. Behind them were rooms and passages, but lately so gaily crowded, so eager, with their lights and fires, for hustling life--now suddenly empty--swept of all its recent company, waiting for new, for very different inhabitants.

The white hands motionless upon the knees, the eyes facing the light but blind, the body still against the velvet, throughout the long, long day....