"Oh!" said Lady Underhill shortly.

It is a disturbing thought that we suffer in this world just as much
by being prudent and taking precautions as we do by being rash and
impulsive and acting as the spirit moves us. If Jill had been
permitted by her wary fiancé to come with him to the station to meet
his mother, it is certain that much trouble would have been avoided.
True, Lady Underhill would probably have been rude to her in the
opening stages of the interview, but she would not have been alarmed
and suspicious; or, rather, the vague suspicion which she had been
feeling would not have solidified, as, it did now, into definite
certainty of the worst. All that Derek had effected by his careful
diplomacy had been to convince his mother that he considered his
bride-elect something to be broken gently to her.

She stopped and faced him.

"Who is she?" she demanded. "Who is this girl?"

Derek flushed.

"I thought I made everything clear in my letter."

"You made nothing clear at all."

"By your leave!" chanted a porter behind them, and a baggage-truck
clove them apart.

"We can't talk in a crowded station," said Derek irritably. "Let me