She thought over her plan that evening. Its execution would cost her something, she realised. For many years she had not been out of England during the winter. She must leave her horses behind, and that was no small sacrifice for Pamela. She had one horse in particular, a big Irish horse, which had carried her in the days when her troubles were at their worst. He would follow her about the paddock or the yard nuzzling against her arm; a horse of blood and courage, yet gentle with her, thoughtful and kind for her as only a horse amongst the animals can be. She must leave him. On the other hand, her thoughts of late had been turning to Roquebrune for a particular reason. She had a feeling that she would rather like to tread again those hill-paths, to see once more those capes and headlands of which every one was a landmark of past pain--just as an experiment. She travelled to London the next day and drove from St. Pancras into Regent's Park.
Millie Stretton had taken a house on the west side of the park. It looked east across the water and through the glades of trees, and in front of it were the open spaces of which Tony and she had dreamed; and the sunlight streamed through the windows and lay in golden splashes on the floors when there was sunlight in London anywhere at all. When she looked from her window on the first morning, she could not but remember the plans which Tony and she had debated long ago. They had been so certain of realising them. Well, they were realised now, for her, at all events. There was the sunlight piercing through every cranny; there were the wide expanses of green, and trees. Only the windows looked on Regent's Park, and on no wide prairie; and of the two who, with so much enthusiasm, had marked out their imaginary site and built their house, there was only one to enjoy the fulfilment. Millie Stretton thought of Tony that morning, but with an effort. What Pamela had foreseen had come to pass. He had grown elusive to her thoughts, she could hardly visualise his person to herself; he was almost unreal. Had he walked in at that moment he would have been irksome to her as a stranger.
It was, however, Pamela Mardale who walked in. She was shown over the house, and until that ceremony was over she did not broach the reason for her visit. Then, however, Millie said with delight--
"It is what I have always wanted--sunlight."
"I came to suggest more sunlight," said Pamela. "There is our villa at Roquebrune in the south of France. It will be empty this winter. And I thought that perhaps you and I might go out there together as soon as Christmas is past."
Millie was standing at the window with her back to Pamela. She turned round quickly.
"But you hate the place," she said.
Pamela answered with sincerity--
"None the less I want to go this winter. I want to go very much. I won't tell you why. But I do want to go. And I should like you to come with me."
Pamela was anxious to discover whether that villa and its grounds, and the view from its windows, had still the power to revive the grief with which they had been so completely associated in her mind. Hitherto she had shrunk from the very idea of ever revisiting Roquebrune; of late, however, since Warrisden, in a word, had occupied so large a place in her thoughts, she had wished to put herself to the test, to understand whether her distress was really and truly dead, or whether it merely slumbered and could wake again. It was necessary, for Warrisden's sake as much as her own, that she should come to a true knowledge. And nowhere else could she so certainly acquire it. If the sight of Roquebrune, the familiar look of the villa's rooms, the familiar paths whereon she had carried so overcharged a heart, had no longer power to hurt and pain her, then she would be sure that she could start her life afresh. It was only fair--so she phrased it in her thoughts--that she should make the experiment.