on them, smothering, heavy, intolerable; they could feel its weight,
as though it were some hateful and tangible thing.

"Like--like black cotton wool," explained Rosemary, stirred to
unwonted resentment. She had spent the day curled up in the largest
Indian chair on the terrace, round-eyed with fatigue and incredulity.

"I honestly think that we must be dreaming," she murmured to her
feverish audience; "I do, honestly. Why, it's only _May_, and we
never, never--there was that day in August about five years ago that
was almost as bad, though. D'you remember, Mummy?"

"It's hardly the kind of thing that one is likely to forget, love.
Do you think that it is necessary for us to talk? I feel somehow
that I could bear it much more easily if we kept quite quiet."

Janet stirred a little, uneasily. She hated silence--that terrible,
empty space waiting to be filled up with your thoughts--why, the
idlest chatter spared you that. She hated the terrace, too--she
closed her eyes to shut out the ugly darkness that was pressing
against her; behind the shelter of her lids it was cooler and stiller,
but open-eyed or closed, she could not shut out memory. The very
touch of the bricks beneath her feet brought back that late October
day. She had been sitting curled up on the steps in the warm sunlight,
with the keen, sweet air stirring her hair and sending the
beech-leaves dancing down the flagged path--there had been a heavenly
smell of burning from the far meadow, and she was sniffing it
luxuriously, feeling warm and joyous and protected in Jerry's great
tweed coat--watching the tall figure swinging across from the lodge
gate with idle, happy eyes--not even curious. It was not until he