Judy turned to Ginger.
'These slight connubialities are rather embarrassing,' she said. 'Will you walk with me while I finish my exercise for the day?'
Sybil laughed.
'Don't go just yet, Judy,' she said. 'Charlie and I will send you away when we want to be alone.'
Judy rose with some dignity.
'My self-respect cannot quite stand that,' she said. 'Come, Ginger. You shall walk back with me to the house, and I will hold the pen when you write to Bertie.'
'I shall put that in the postscript,' he said. 'The vials of wrath shall descend on both of us.'
The two strolled away out of the shadow of the trees into the yellow flood of sunshine that hung over the lawn. The air was very windless, and the flower-beds below the house basked in full summer luxuriance of colour. Far away in a misty hollow the town of Winchester sunned itself under a blue haze of heat, and languid, dim-sounding church bells clanged distantly. Sybil turned towards her husband.
'A year ago—just a year ago,' she said, 'we sat here like this. I always remember that day as a day of pause before I started on adventures. Oh, Charlie, on what tiny things life and happiness depend! Just as a bullet may pass within an inch of your head, and not touch you, when another inch would have killed you, so the smallest incident may turn the whole course of things. For, do you know, if I had not been in Mrs. Emsworth's room when Mr. Bilton came in, I believe I should have married him.'
'Well, then you see that had just got to happen,' said Charlie, smiling at her.