She had moved nearer to the fire, and stood there facing the door through which he would come. She had not been alone in a room with him for thirty years—not since the brief bitter interview in which she told him that she knew about Carrie Lintott, and gave him back his ring. Across the gap of the years it still pleased her to remember that it was he who had wept, not she. It was just a month before the day which had been set for their marriage. Her wedding dress hung, covered with a sheet, in the room which was Phyllida’s now. Her wreath and veil reposed in the top long drawer of the tallboy. But it was Robert Moffat who contributed all the emotion to that interview. He had gone down on his knees and clutched at her skirt. He had abased himself in penitence. He had begged, implored, protested. She was remembering these things now, as she had remembered them every time she had seen him in the last thirty years. You cannot live in the same place and never meet.
