She stopped abruptly, trembling from head to foot, and glanced wildly about her till her eyes rested on her husband. For a long, long moment she regarded him in silence. She seemed to be gathering herself together for a supreme effort.
All four men watched her in breathless suspense.
With her eyes still fastened on Cyril she fumbled in the bosom of her dress, then her hand shot out, and before any one could prevent her, she jabbed a hypodermic needle deep into her arm.
"What have you done?" cried Cyril, springing forward and wrenching the needle from her.
A beatific smile spread slowly over her face.
She swayed a little and would have fallen if Cyril had not caught her.
"It is too late," she murmured. "Too late! Forgive me, Cyril. I--loved--you--so----"
Under a yew tree, overlooking a wide lawn, bordered on the farther side by a bank of flowers, three people are sitting clustered around a tea-table.
One of them is a little old lady, the dearest old lady imaginable. By her side, in a low basket chair, a girl is half sitting, half reclining. Her small figure, clad in a simple black frock, gives the impression of extreme youth, which impression is heightened by the fact that her curly, yellow hair, reaching barely to the nape of her neck, is caught together by a black ribbon like a schoolgirl's. But when one looks more closely into her pale face, one realises somehow that she is a woman and a woman who has suffered--who still suffers.
On the ground facing the younger woman a red-headed young man in white flannels is squatting tailor-fashion. He is holding out an empty cup to be refilled.
"Not another!" exclaims the little old lady in a horrified tone. "Why, you have had three already!"
"My dear Trevie, let me inform you once and for all that I have abandoned my figure. Why should I persist in the struggle now that Anita refuses to smile on me? When one's heart is broken, one had better make the most of the few pleasures one can still enjoy. So another cup, please."
Anita took no notice of his sally; her eyes were fixed on the distant horizon; she seemed absorbed in her own thoughts.
"By the way," remarked Campbell casually as he sipped his tea, "I spent last Sunday at Geralton." He watched Anita furtively. A faint flutter of the eyelids was the only indication she gave of having heard him, yet Guy was convinced that she was waiting breathlessly for him to continue.