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CHAPTER VII



CHAPTER VII

Afterwards Marigold used to wonder how it was that that dreadful scene with Lindley, at the beginning of her honeymoon, completely failed to spoil what followed. By every reasonable standard, it should have destroyed so much of her confidence and peace of mind that nothing could be of any real value afterwards. And yet, some­how, it was not like that at all.

 

Not that Marigold was not aware of the shadow of danger in the background. Not that she really forgot for one moment that her happi­ness might not last longer than a matter of days or even hours. But, in defiance of all threats and doubts, she snatched the most perfect happiness from her short honeymoon with Paul.

Nothing in her life had ever given Marigold such happiness or such belief in herself before. If she could make Paul happy like this, then she could challenge the world.

To do her justice, her own happiness had really become a secondary concern. He was the more important. To be sure, the two were now inextricable. But, where before she would have let things take their course—watching them helplessly and hoping for the best—now she felt that some fight must be made. And it was this which finally decided her that she must see Lindley before he left the country.

 

Even then, she refused to let the fully formed thought spoil her honeymoon. Only, at the back of her mind, was really the acceptance of the idea that she and Lindley must have the cards on the table.

It was not going to be easy—that she knew. For one thing, even the amount of time left to her before he went out of the country was uncer­tain. It might be a week or two, or it might be only a day or two. She could not afford to wait. When she went back to Town, the first and urgent thing must be to arrange to see him —however distasteful the interview might be, and however difficult it might be to manage it when either Paul or Stephanie had a claim on most of her time.

 

She refused to think of the necessary and un­pleasant details until the last moment of that lovely honeymoon was over. But the opportunity arose as they neared London.

 

'As a matter of fact, darling, I'm going to have to desert you today, at least, so far as lunch is concerned,' Paul told her. 'There's some sort of conference on this morning and I don't really know when I'll get away. Perhaps you can arrange something with Stephanie,' he added, as though Marigold had never had lunch on her own before, and might not know quite what to do.

She laughed.

'I don't expect Stephanie will be able to get away at the same time as myself. But anyway, doesn't matter. I have had lunch on my own before, you know, and I can't expect a busy hm band to contrive to meet me every day.'

'All right.' He turned his head and smiled at her.

Somehow she contrived to smile back at him, but it was purely mechanical, because the chilling thought had just come to her: 'This is prob­ably the best opportunity you'll get of arranging to see Lindley.'

Suddenly the crisis was right on top of her, The idea which had existed in embryo for the last few days was suddenly clear and inescapable-. It was no longer: 'I must see Lindley some time.' It was: 'Today I must see Lindley.'

Paul dropped her near Victoria, soon after nine o'clock, kissing her with the brief warmth of a man who was very much in love, but very busy. For him, too, the realities of life were coming uppermost. Their honeymoon was over.

As she went down the steps, her pace insens­ibly slackened. The tight feeling in her throat, the slightly clammy chill between her shoulders, Were the intensification of all the nervousness there had ever been. Nervousness before exams at school, nervousness on the first day at the office, nervousness before any and every ordeal which one strove, naturally but quite uselessly, to ignore or postpone.

She had to find a telephone box now and somehow make some arrangement with Lindley. It was the lowest extremity of cowardice to hope that he would be out, that she would be unable to get in touch with him, that the telephone would be out of order. But she hoped all these things, while she knew inevitably that they could do nothing towards solving the problem which grew bigger with every delay.

The telephone box was hot and stuffy. The last person who had used it must have been smoking strong tobacco, and it made her feel stupid and as though she might have difficulty in hearing. Or perhaps that was nothing to do with stuffiness or tobacco fumes. Perhaps it was just the beating of the blood in her ears,

She dialled Lindley's number with strangely stiff fingers, and heard the distant buzzing.

Suppose she had the wrong number? Suppose he was no longer living at his luxury flat? Sup pose he had gone out early?

'Hello,' Lindley's voice said crisply in her ear, And with an effort she replied:

'This is Marigold speaking.'

'Who?' He was surprised and, she knew immediately, intensely amused as well. 'Mari gold? My dear, how charming of you to ring. I thought you were on your honeymoon, with no thoughts of such an unworthy creature as myself.'

'I'm back in London. We came back this morning.'

'And you rang me at once? I'm over­whelmed.' He was definitely laughing now.

'Lindley, I want to see you. I must see you —if possible today.' She wished she could make her voice sound less urgent—more as though it didn't matter a damn to her, but ii might be wiser for him to do what she sug­gested.

'I can't manage today,' he replied coolly, and she wondered why she never noticed before how extraordinarily insolent he could make his attractive voice sound.

'But I must see you before you go away. You——you surely see that there are—there are sev­eral things we have to—to discuss.'

'Are there?'

'Yes, Lindley, of course there are. For your sake as well as mine.' She wondered if that sounded convincing and decided that it did not.

He seemed to decide that too, because he laughed again.

'I'm extraordinarily flattered at this sudden interest in me,' he began. But she interrupted him sharply.

'Please, Lindley. I know it must be fun to lease and humiliate me. But will you be serious for a moment? I haven't all the time in the world to stand here talking. I don't know when you're leaving England, but I suppose it's probably soon, and I may not get another chance. I'll be free at lunch-time today. I shan't always be free then, because—because I expect Paul and I shall usually meet. But today he's got a conference. I can get away on my own. Can't you arrange that we meet somewhere?'

'For a really intimate talk, eh?'

'For some sort of discussion about—about what's happened,' she corrected sharply.

'Of course.' That edge of amusement win there again. 'I mean that we want somewhere where we can be comparatively private.'

'I suppose so."

'Then you'd better come here to my flat.'

'To your flat? I can't possibly do that!'

'My dear girl, why ever not?'

'You know perfectly well why not.'

'I'm sorry, but I can't keep arranging and rearranging things to suit you, Mari. After all, it's you who are demanding this interview. I'm doing my best to fall in with the demand, within the limits of a very necessary privacy. Time was when you were not so squeamish—though perhaps I ought not to remind a respectable married woman of that. I'll expect you here about one, shall I?'

She was silent for a moment, trying desper­ately to decide if it were best to take at least what he offered and make the best of it. It was not as though anyone who knew her could possibly see her going in or out of his flat—and, anyway, lunch was a harmless enough meal. Only--------

'Where are you working?' he asked, interrupt­ing her thoughts.

She told him.

'Oh, well, ten minutes in a taxi will bring you lure. It could hardly be more convenient. I'll expect you at one. If you don't arrive, I shall know you thought better—or worse—of it. Good-bye.'

And even as she stood there, trying to think what next to say to him, she heard the receiver click into place.

Slowly she replaced her own receiver, and stood there for a moment in most unwelcome thought. Then a sharp tap on the window of the telephone box drew her attention to the fact that an impatient old gentleman was waiting to follow her, and that he evidently thought she had already had long enough, without adding insult to injury by standing there mooning when her actual call was over.

She came out of the box, murmured an apo­logy which was very ill received, and then went to get her train.

In a sense, one horrid step was over. There was a reprieve of an hour or two before the next. And it was amazing how precious even an hour or two could seem in the circumstances.

She sat in the Tube train, like hundreds of other office-workers, holding her newspaper in her hand, and apparently studying its conning with interest. Her glance passed over the blurred lines again and again, without the sense even reaching her brain, and once or twice she even turned a page, as though force of habit compelled her to an action which really had no connection with herself.

Oddly enough, she was not even pursuing and agitated train of thought. She was just sitting there, with her mind peculiarly blank, while sin recovered from one crisis and prepared for tin next.

But before that came upon her, she had to be a normal and happy bride returning to work from her honeymoon. And she had to play that role sufficiently convincingly to pass the affectionate scrutiny of Stephanie.

Marigold decided that deception was becom­ing almost natural to her, because Stephanie's greeting was:

'Well, there's no need to ask whether the honeymoon was a success. You look as though you've found the proverbial pot of gold.'

'Do I really?' Marigold smiled. 'Well, that's how I feel,' she added mendaciously, and won­dered where truth ended and lies began. Because, of course, so far as the honeymoon itself was concerned, that was how she had felt. Stephanie stayed only for a few minutes to think to her then, but later in the morning she came into Marigold's room, to snatch ten min­utes and a cup of coffee, and asked how 'every­thing had gone off,' as she styled it.

Slightly to her surprise, Marigold found her- self giving a most entertaining and amusing account of everything. One incident only she missed out. No mention was made of Lindley. She hardly knew whether this was because she could not have told Stephanie quite calmly what had happened, or whether she naturally left it to Paul to decide whether anything at all should be said.

After all, if it were only going to upset Ste­phanie for nothing, there was no point in men­tioning his visit. On the other hand, it was possible that she might as well know that he wanted to see her, but that Paul had told him of the divorce proceedings pending and that Ste­phanie had no intention of seeing him. Anyway, that was something Paul must decide. Merci­fully, Marigold might legitimately regard that as not her business.

'I know Paul always has a conference on Tues­days,' Stephanie broke in just then, 'and I thought it would be so flat for you on your own, after a few days of bliss, so I've arranged things so that we can have the same lunchtime for once.'

 

For a wild moment, Marigold thought she must accept this reprieve. Lindley had even said that if she didn't come he would know she hail thought better—or worse—of it. She could go with Stephanie to some pleasant, undramatic lunch and push away the dreadful thoughts old crisis for a few cowardly hours longer.

But the next moment she knew it was impossible. Like perpetually postponing an operation which was the only thing that could save one's life. And she heard herself saying with the most convincing regret:

'Oh, Stephanie dear, I'm so sorry. I never thought of your being able to arrange that. I rang up on the way to the office and made a lunch appointment with—with a friend.'

'Why, that's quite all right,' Stephanie assured her. 'We can go another day. I don't know why, but somehow I always imagine you without any friends. Quite ridiculous of course. I suppose it's because, in a way, we know so little about you, although you're so much one of us by now.'

Marigold hoped her smile was not so faint as it felt, and said:

'Yes, I suppose so. Though I haven't many friends, as a matter of fact.'

'Is this one a friend from your last office?' Ste­phanie asked, not because she was curious, but simply for something to say.

Marigold moistened unexpectedly dry lips with the tip of her tongue and said: 'Someone I met through the office.' And then hated herself for the half lie which Stephanie accepted so unhesitatingly.

She was glad that Stephanie went back to her work soon after that, and for a moment she could sink her face in her hands, and try to escape from the confusion of her thoughts, which made it so difficult to decide just what cool and calm line she should take during the interview which was now drawing perilously near.

At a quarter to one she rather deliberately and unnecessarily tidied the papers on her desk, arranging everything with care, as though she had all the time in the world at her disposal. Then she put on her hat and coat, studying her­self in the mirror as though her appearance really mattered. Perhaps it might, of course, she reflected cynically, if she had to do any pleading.

But she knew, the very next moment, that pleading would not be the line to adopt with Lindley.

Then suddenly her whole mood changed. Slid was desperately afraid that she might be late, and he would not wait for her.

Hastily she ran down the stairs, and with difficulty restrained herself from running down the drive too. As she hastened along she kept on telling herself that it might be impossible to pick up a cruising taxi at this time of the day. But as slit- came out of the gate, one was actually passing, and drew in to the kerb at her signal.

She gave the address, and then sank back against the worn, shiny upholstery of the seat. And immediately the cause for hurry seemed to sink away from her, and she wished the taxi would crawl, so that she might never reach her journey's end—or at any rate, only when it was too late to do anything.

There was something horribly exhausting about this alternating of a frantic desire for speed and an equally frantic desire to drag things out to their fullest limit of time, and Marigold leant back with her eyes closed. In a minute she would think out just what she was going to say and do, but for the moment she must just be still, and hope that her heart

too would lessen its almost choking beat.

She must have remained like that much longer than she had intended, because suddenly the taxi stopped with a jerk, and when she opened her eyes to see if they were in a traffic block, she rea­lised with a start which seemed to wrench her heart that they were already there.

Reluctantly she got out and paid the taxi- driver, and still more reluctantly she went slowly into the palatial block of flats.

It was the first time she had ever visited Lindley like this. In their brief and romantic acquaintance he had never asked her here —perhaps because he knew instinctively that she would have been half alarmed at such an in­vitation. No doubt if that weekend had come to anything

But there was no need to follow that train of thought. And with something more like resolu­tion, Marigold went into the panelled lift, which bore her upwards in almost complete silence, to the top floor, where Lindley had his flat.

As she went along the heavily carpeted cor­ridor, even Marigold, inexperienced as she was, knew that one paid very heavily indeed for this degree of discreet efficiency and restrained luxury. Lindley was not a man who stinted himself in anything. Stephanie's little house was unpretentious and homely compared with this. But Marigold longed for it suddenly, with an intensity which almost brought tears to her eyes.

However, this was no moment for tears, and the silent manservant who admitted her was cer­tainly not the kind of person before whom one shed them.

He took Marigold into a long, spacious room, where she had a momentary impression of deep cream carpets, black furniture and old gold hangings. Then Lindley rose from a chair by the window and came smilingly towards her. And she forgot all about furnishings and hangings and everything but the scene which was now right on top of her.

'My dear, this is really charming!' He was the perfect host while the servant was in the room. 'Come and have a drink before lunch.'

She accepted the drink—not because she wanted it, but because it gave her something to do in the first difficult seconds, and she thought it might help to steady her.

'I can't stay to lunch, Lindley. I mean, I don't want any lunch. I only want a chance to talk and—'

'Oh, but that's absurd. Of course you must have lunch. You're going back to your work this afternoon, aren't you?'

'Yes, of course. But I'll get a sandwich or something.'

'Nonsense. That's quite unnecessary.' He handed her a glass with a smile. 'What shall we drink to? Future happiness?'

She drank nervously, without answering him. Then she looked up again, wishing either that she were not in such a low chair or else that he would not tower over her with quite such smiling assurance. It made her feel like a suppliant at once. And not a very hopeful one, at that.

'It's very kind of you—about lunch, I mean. But what I want is a serious talk, Lindley. And there's no chance of that with a servant in and out all the time and—'

Well, we'll see.' He smiled with seeming good nature. 'What is this very serious talk about?'

Your divorce, of course.'

Oh, my divorce. How good of you to take so much interest in my affairs.'

Lindley, unfortunately this is my affair too. You heard what Paul said. You know what the situation is. He hasn't the faintest idea that I —that I—Well, he doesn't know who the real co-respondent is. If it should ever come out           

She stopped despairingly. Then, as he said nothing, but simply watched her, she went on again doggedly, 'I love him, Lindley, I——'

'You thought you loved me once,' he said softly.

'Yes, I know. But that was different. You must believe me when I tell you that it was nothing more than a wild and romantic infatuation. I'm not making excuses for myself. I behaved very badly. I even didn't behave specially well to you.1

'That's true.'

'But then you didn't behave very well to me,

Lindley. You made me think——Oh, well, that doesn't matter. I didn't come here to upbraid you.'

 

'No? I'm still waiting to hear why you did come here.'

'I came to see if there's anything we can do. Anything which will be a way out of this dread­ful tangle without my having to tell—without Paul having to know what I was really doing at the hotel that night.'

'Do you mean that you don't want Stephanie to divorce me?' he enquired pleasantly. 'Because, if so, your wishes jump with mine.'

 

'No,' Marigold said firmly. 'No, I don't mean that. I think—I think Stephanie would be much happier divorced, and I can't see that you have much to gain by keeping her. Only I don't want the divorce to be based on what happened that weekend. I know it's just remotely possible that my name can be kept out of it—'

'How?' he enquired coolly, and she felt her heart stop.

'Why—why—' she stammered. 'I thought—Paul himself said he didn't know who the little —I mean, he didn't know who the girl was, but that it didn't matter. That the case could go for­ward with the co-respondent remaining anony­mous. What do you mean?'

Lindley took a cigar and thoughtfully cut it and lit it before replying. Then he spoke at last, just as she thought her nerves could stand the strain of waiting no longer.

'My dear Mari, there's one very important fact in all this which you appear to have over­looked entirely. And that is that, so far as this in­teresting weekend is concerned, no—what shall I say?—no offence, in the meaning of the divorce laws, took place.'

'I know. I know. But there's the hotel register.

Our names appear as—'

 

'To be sure. But what does that really amount to?' Lindley smiled at her and shrugged his shoulders almost deprecatingly. 'I know your simple and tiresome Paul imagines that there- will be plenty of evidence of the chambermaid variety to back up that entry. But there isn't any, is there?'

 

'No! No, of course not. But surely—isn't the register sufficient in itself?'

 

'Possibly,' Lindley agreed. 'It's just possible that, so long as the co-respondent remained, as you put it, anonymous, the register might be accepted as sufficient evidence, though I doubt it. But the really important thing, my dear Mari, is that, as soon as the co-respondent's real iden­tity is established, she has a cast-iron alibi. She left the hotel quite early that evening with no less a person than the man who is now her hus­band. Few people have ever had a better alibi. Therefore, you see, it really hardly seems pos­sible that your name can be kept out of it.'

 

'But do you mean—' Marigold broke off, staring at him in horrified dismay, her grey eyes almost black in her white face. 'Do you mean that you'll deliberately disclose my identity?'

He looked back at her, the very slightest trace of defiance in his easy smile.

 

'I'm sorry, Mari. Believe me. I'm really sorry. But I have no intention of allowing Stephanie to divorce me, if I can help it. By the—admittedly unfortunate—disclosure of your identity, I can How their whole divorce case sky-high. And incidentally, make Paul Irving look a damn fool,' he added with undisguised satisfaction.

'But you can't do that, Lindley! Think what it will mean for me.' She was pleading now, after all, little though she had intended to do so.

'But, my dear, think also what it will mean for ne if I don't disclose your identity. The evidence o the register may be taken as conclusive. Indeed, if I make no defence or protest, it will be be taken. You're really asking too much, you know.'

 

'But it can't matter to you if Stephanie divorces you. You can't possibly pretend that you care for her or that your happiness is in any way concerned with keeping her as your wife,' Marigold exclaimed. 'There's so little involved for you, Lindley, and everything which matters for me.'

'I'm afraid you're jumping to too quick con­cisions there, Mari,' he assured her pleasantly. 'My marriage to Stephanie may not be an ideally happy one, but it suits me extraordinarily well in many ways. I needn't go into that with you. Pos­sibly you would think some of my motives small compared with the grand motive of preserving Paul in a state of happy innocence. But then, as you must have suspected long ago, my dear, I'm a selfish creature. I make no pretence to being anything else'—he smiled, as though that excused all—'and, quite frankly, I'm consulting my own interests in this. Not yours—not Paul's.'

She was silent for a moment, in sheer dumb horror, as the full meaning of what he was saying seeped into her consciousness. Then suddenly she roused herself.

'Lindley, I can't believe that you'll deliberately spoil everything—even the one slender chance of—of escape which I had. Won't you please at any rate give me the chance of my name not coming out? God knows, it's small enough. You say Stephanie would be unlikely to get a divorce on the strength of the hotel register alone. Oh, but I want her to get her divorce, poor Stephanie! She's had such a rotten time. She deserves some happiness now.'

'Is that what you came to tell me?' he asked rather coldly.

'No. At least—yes. In a way, it was. I hoped —oh, Lindley, I did hope that the divorce could go through on some—some other evidence.'

'What other evidence?' he enquired.

'Oh, I don't know, Paul says——' She stopped, suddenly afraid of this man who held so much power in his hand.

'Yes? Do tell me what Paul says.'

'Lindley, don't be angry, but—it's the truth, isn't it? I wasn't the first, by any means. There —there were other times. And those times the girls didn't go away early in the evening.'

Something about the way she said that seemed to amuse him intensely.

'Are you asking me to supply incriminating evidence?' he asked lightly, as he poured himself another whisky, after she, with a gesture, had refused his invitation to another.

'I'm asking you to be generous,' she said slowly.

'Generous?' He smiled and shook his head slightly. 'That's too much to ask of my type, Mari. But tell me—what was the generous course you had mapped out for me?'

She hesitated. It was so hopeless to go on talk­ing to this smiling man, who had no real inten­tion of taking into consideration any interests other than his own. And yet she could not go away without saying everything—however futile—which she had once felt might influence till situation.

 

'Lindley, there's all my happiness involved in this.' She spoke in a low voice, nervously fingering a fold of her dress as she spoke. 'I don't know whether that means anything to you at all, but I thought—I thought you were fond of me once, so perhaps it means a little. I know I've behaved foolishly—wickedly, if you like, but—but I've paid a good deal already in misery and fear. Now I have a chance of being happy—happier than I've ever dreamed of being. It means Paul's happiness too, though I don't expect that matters to you, because you don't like Paul, do you?'

He shook his head, still smiling.

'Too much to expect a man to like his successful rival,' he declared.

 

'Well then, there's Stephanie. Surely her happiness means something to you still. You must have loved her once—or at least have been fond of her. If you'll let her divorce you without —without defending the suit, she can be happy.'

'With someone else?' he asked quickly.

'I don't know,' lied Marigold coolly, because she felt that, whatever happened, she must not betray Stephanie. 'But whether there is someone else or not, she can't be happy tied to you, in this wretched and unsatisfactory arrangement. I mean, let her divorce you. And please, please won't you let it go forward on some sort of evi­dence other than the—the weekend which involves me?'

 

She stared at him with anxious, imploring eyes, and saw, with a sinking heart, the air of amused protest with which he raised his eye­brows.

'Are you suggesting I should actually supply the evidence for a painless divorce?' he enquired.

'It couldn't—matter to—you which occasion was used,' muttered Marigold wretchedly.

He didn't answer that, but, turning from her, walked slowly up the room and back again. She looked after him, for a wild moment or two her hopes rocketing to unbelievable heights. Was it possible that he was actually thinking over what she had suggested—that he might even accede to what she was asking?

But as he turned and came slowly towards her again, she felt her heart sink once more. There was nothing at all in his face to encourage such flattering hopes.

'Now listen, Mari.' He paused in front of her, and she looked up at him with painful intensity. 'I don't often bother to explain my motives to people, but I'll tell you just why I shouldn't dream of doing what you want.'

'I don't want to hear,' she cried in a sharp voice with the pain of disappointment. 'I don't want to hear your beastly reasons if the end of them all is that you won't help me.'

'But you shall hear.' He caught her lightly by her wrist as she sprang to her feet. 'It may be something of a lesson to you.'

She didn't ask him what sort of a lesson. She wrenched her wrist from his grasp, and sat down again because she found it peculiarly difficult to stand and look defiant.

He smiled a little, as though he knew all about how weak she felt.

'You were perfectly right when you said I should hardly be likely to be concerned about Paul's happiness. Equally I'm not concerned about Stephanie's happiness or yours. But I'll go further than that. It will give me a modified pleasure to disappoint Stephanie in her virtuous confidence that she can secure a divorce, with one hand, so to speak, against her erring hus­band; it will give me even a modified pleasure to punish you for a quite unpardonable affront on a certain much-discussed occasion. But what will give me a really profound and piquant pleasure will be the knowledge that I can humiliate Paul Irving beyond anything he has ever imagined and, if I'm not much mistaken, also wound him in whatever affections he has.'

'But it's monstrous of you!' Marigold cried distractedly. 'He's never done anything to '

'Oh, hasn't he?' Lindley interrupted her with a laugh, but this time it was a very short laugh and there was the minimum of amusement in it. 'Paul Irving has allowed himself the indulgence of being very offensive to me on quite a number of occasions. I'm going to pay all that back, Mari, when I tell him who was with me at the hotel that weekend. And incidentally, there'll be no divorce. I hate to stem the eloquence which I feel sure you want to pour out on me,' he added, holding up his hand, as she made an eager effort to speak, 'but I have said absolutely the last word on the subject.'

Even then she struggled to find some words —some protest or plea which would reach him. But she knew, without hope of contradiction, that it was useless.

As she looked at him it was inevitably borne in on her that all three of them—Stephanie, Paul and herself—had at one time or another wound­ed Lindley in the only sensitive part of him—his pride and vanity. He might have forgiven one of them—possibly even two. But certainly not three. And that was the end.

She got slowly to her feet. She felt slightly stunned by the completeness of her failure, but that helped to dull the pain for the moment.

'Won't you stay to lunch with me, Mari, now that you and I have come to an understanding at last?' he said lightly.

But she made a sick little gesture of refusal. A gesture which implied that food and he were equally revolting at the moment.

'Well then, if you're quite determined—'

She didn't answer. She walked steadily to the door. He went quickly before her and opened it for her. Then he followed her out into the hall and opened the front door himself, without cal­ling his servant.

Perhaps something in her face aroused the slightest, belated compunction in him, because he said:

'Will you be all right?'

'Yes,' Marigold said. And that was all she did say. Without even a good-bye, she went out into the long, carpeted corridor. She heard the door close quietly behind her, and it sounded to her like the door closing on hope. Quite mechanically she pushed the bell for the lift and absently watched the red lighted arrow moving up the glass panel as an indication that the lift was coming.

In a minute she would realise just how awful everything was, but for the moment she felt numb.

The lift stopped and the heavy door slid silent­ly back. There was a man in the lift, and she stood aside, almost blindly, for him to get out. But he didn't step forward. He only leant for­ward and caught her by the arm, with an excla­mation of astonishment.

Then, as though she were recognising him in a dream, she saw that the man was Paul.

 

 


 



  

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