She picked the letter up indifferently and broke open the flap. There was a moment of silence; Gladys glanced up.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
Christine was staring out of the window, the letter lay on the floor at her feet.
"Jimmy's ill," she said listlessly.
"Ill!" Gladys laid down her pen and swung round in the chair. "What's the matter with him?" she asked rather sceptically.
"I don't know. You can read the letter, it's from Mr.
Sangster—Jimmy's great friend."
She handed the letter over.
Gladys read it through and gave it back.
"Humph!" she said with a little inelegant sniff; she looked at her friend. "Are you going?" she asked bluntly.
Christine did not answer. She was thinking of Jimmy, deliberately trying to think of the man whom she had done her best during the last three weeks to forget. She tried to think of him as he had been that last dreadful night at the hotel, when he had threatened to strike her, when he had told her to clear out and leave him; but somehow she could only recall him as he had looked at Euston that morning when he said good-bye to her, with the hangdog, shamed look in his eyes, and the pathetic droop to his shoulders.