“It is true that Bernadine and I were bitter antagonists,” Peter admitted, gravely. “Death, however, ends all that. I wish him no further harm.”
She sighed.
“As for me,” she said, “I am growing used to being friendless. I was friendless before Bernadine came, and latterly we have been nothing to one another. Now, I suppose, I shall know what it is to be an outcast once more. Did you ever hear my history, I wonder?”
Peter shook his head.
“Never, Baroness,” he replied. “I understood, I believe, that your marriage—”
“My husband divorced me,” she confessed, simply. “He was quite within his rights. He was impossible. I was very young and very sentimental. They say that Englishwomen are cold,” she added. “Perhaps that is so. People think that I look cold. Do you?”
Sogrange suddenly opened the door of the car in which they were already seated. She leaned back and half closed her eyes.
“It is rather a long ride,” she said, “and I am worn out. I hope you will not mind, but for myself I cannot talk when motoring. Smoke, if it pleases you.”
“Might one inquire as to our exact destination?” Sogrange asked.
“We go beyond Hitchin, up the Great North Road,” she told him again. “The house is called the High House. It stands in the middle of a heath and I think it is the loneliest and most miserable place that was ever built. I hate it and I am frightened in it. For some reason or other, it suited Bernadine, but that is all over now.”