She was interrupted by a sound in the bookshop; and Wolf saw her stiffen and lay her finger on her lip, and turn a tense, concentrated, narrow-lidded stare at the door leading into the shop.

Wolf did not like the manner of this intense listening. He had liked still less the tone in which she had welcomed his appearance, not for his own sake, but as a means of reaching Darnley! The truth began to deepen upon him that between Olwen and the old man Christie’s world had never been more occupied, had never promised less free space for him and for his affairs.

The sounds within the shop, whatever their nature, ceased now, and she turned, smiling. She laid two small fingertips, light as that feather in her Urn-Burial , upon his coat-sleeve.