He came at six o’clock.’ ‘Oh I am glad!’ exclaimed Sunflower. Now she would be able to tell him about Alice Hester at once. ‘Where is he?’ ‘He is at dinner, Madam, and—’ But Sunflower threw down her gloves and bag on the hall-table, and ran right into the dining-room, which was silted up with late twilight. As she came from behind the draught-screen at the door Essington rose out of the tall chair at the head of the table, which was where she sat as a rule. She could not see his face; on the settee behind him burned the three candles that were as yet the only light in the room. She went to him, holding out her arms and crying, ‘Oh, darling! I’ve seen something so wonderful today! I went to the Assize Court in Packbury, and there was an old woman of seventy who had committed bigamy—’ But he kept silence, lowering his head a little, in the way which always meant that she had done something stupid and that he was not going to help her out of it. There was the sound of another chair being pushed backward.
