Sonia stared hard at Mrs. Clarke. Then she said:
“So you are, Madame.”
“In what way?”
“You look almost excited and younger than usual.”
“Younger!”
“Yes, as if you were expecting something, almost as a girl expects. I never saw you just like this before.”
Mrs. Clarke looked at herself in a mirror earnestly, and for a long time.
“That’s all, Sonia,” she said, turning round. “You can tell Mr. Leith.”
Sonia went out.
Mrs. Clarke followed her ten minutes later. When she came into the little hall she saw lying on a table beside Dion’s hat several letters. She stopped by the table and looked down at them. They lay there in a pile held together by an elastic band, and she could only see the writing on the envelope which was at the top. It was addressed to Dion and had been through the post. She wondered whether among those letters there was one from Rosamund. Had she written to the husband whom she had cast out to tell him of the great change which had led her to give up the religious life, to come out to the land of the cypress?