startled her to stretch out her head and to listen. Then she heard the launch more distinctly, and she knew well the pulse of its engine. It came at slow speed into the bay, and a little later she heard the rattle of a chain and the closing of the boathouse doors. And then the stumbling steps on the other side of the house. The dogs roused a minute to growl and then lay still.
Valerie found herself very wide awake. Why had Dane come back? He had hardly had time to get to Roland’s Mills, even if he had gone at top speed all the way. She sat down on the edge of her cot with a hard pain inside her. If he had meant to get drunk why had he lied to her? He had never lied before. For the first time a real despair took possession of her. This thing was growing on him, was getting ahead of him. The time would soon come when the interludes would not balance the black moods, would not compensate.
She got into bed and lay with her eyes open staring into the blackness under the verandah roof.
She asked no questions of Lee at breakfast, and the boy said nothing about his master. She wondered if she was supposed to know that Dane was back so that she would keep away from his side of the house. At times like these she felt like an outsider in the place, as if she had no part there at all. She felt more than usually upset that morning, and could only make a pretence of working. Her characters seemed unreal, their actions trivial and their emotions silly. She could not get hold of them at all.
When he brought her lunch Lee said: “Meester Barrington back. He not well. He wish himself alone.”
Valerie knew it was useless to be angry with the boy who could do so much more for the sick man than she could. But it was just this that maddened her. And she reflected what a grim Nemesis it was that should have brought to
