“That doesn’t sound so bad,” thought Winifred. “Jolyon had style.”

“It is a coil,” she said. “What will father say?”

“Mustn’t be told,” said Soames. “The war’ll soon be over now, you’d better let Val take to farming out there.”

It was tantamount to saying that his nephew was lost.

“I haven’t told Monty,” Winifred murmured desolately.

The case was reached before noon next day, and was over in little more than half an hour. Soames⁠—pale, spruce, sad-eyed in the witness-box⁠—had suffered so much beforehand that he took it all like one dead. The moment the decree nisi was pronounced he left the Courts of Justice.