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 cup of tea and raised the plated cover of a dish. The sight of a lonely sausage decided her. She opened the letter.

Before she had read to the end she leant forward to think, with her knuckles doubled under her chin. Other people have that sinister advantage over one of being able to see the back of one's head. For the first time in her life she had the uncomfortable sense that somebody had done so, that somebody had not only glanced but was continuously staring. Her husband did not make her feel like this.

"Fancy," she thought. "Just an hour and ten minutes exactly. Just that little time, and all these years I never knew. Think of living among all these people and never knowing how I was different."

She folded up the letter for a moment, and began betting against herself on his Christian name. "Evelyn," she thought, "or possibly Arthur, or Philip." As a matter of fact it was Charles.

"I know you so well," the letter continued. "Before you drew your gloves off I knew that you were married. You have been