Enid was waiting for her at the white gates, when the car brought her home.
"Mother dear, is anything wrong? Are you ill?"
The car had stopped; and Enid, clambering on the step, showed a white, scared face.
"No, my dear. I am quite all right. I'll get out here, and stroll in the garden with you.... My sweet Enid, did the message frighten you?"
"Yes, dreadfully."
"It was inconsiderate of me not to say I wasn't ill.... I am taking the day off. That is all."
"But what has happened? Something has upset you. I can see it in your face."
Then, as they walked slowly to and fro along a terrace between bright and perfumed flowers, Mrs. Marsden-Thompson quietly told her daughter the news.
"I am a widow, Enid dear.... No, it did not upset me. Mr. Mears and I were both prepared to hear it.... But of course it takes one back into the past; it sets one thinking—and I felt at once that I ought not to attend to ordinary business, that it would be only proper to take the day off....
"And I think, Enid, that henceforth I shall call myself Mrs. Thompson—plain Mrs. Thompson, dropping the other name altogether."... She had paused on the path, to pick a sprig of verbena; and she gently crushed a thin leaf, and inhaled its perfume. "Yes, dear. I always liked the old name best. But I felt that while he was living, it might seem unkind, and in bad taste, if I altogether refused to bear his name. Now, however, it cannot matter;" and she opened her hand and let the crushed leaf fall. "He has gone. And he is quite forgotten. There is nobody who can think it unkind if his name dies, too."