Left alone together, Poirot bent forward and murmured to Katherine:

“You are distraite, Mademoiselle; your thoughts, they are far away, are they not?”

“Just as far as England, no farther.”

Guided by a sudden impulse, she took the letter she had received that morning and handed it across to him to read.

“That is the first word that has come to me from my old life; somehow or other⁠—it hurts.”

He read it through and then handed it back to her.

“So you are going back to St. Mary Mead?” he said.

“No, I am not,” said Katherine; “why should I?”