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Elfreda looked down the long, bright room. Aunt Marian lecturing Aunt Hortensia—what fun. Aunt Agnes talking about horses to Hugo, whilst Uncle Frank chaffed Loveday. Madeline and Mary were talking to Aunt Maud, and Robert was describing his last round of golf to Uncle James. She caught the words “I was dormy two,” and made a face.

Rose Anne certainly wasn’t here, and in about half a minute Aunt Hortensia would tumble to it, and then there would be trouble. She and Oliver and the nice Russell man were quite close to the door. She said,

“I’ll go and get her,” and slipped out of the room. Awfully silly of Rose Anne to be late, but even Aunt Hortensia couldn’t be very hard on the bride. All the same, the sooner Rose Anne got down the better, because there went the three strokes which made it a quarter to eight, and if the soup was cold, even Uncle James wouldn’t be pleased.

She burst into Rose Anne’s room, and found it empty. Apalling to think that she mightn’t be out of her bath. But the bathroom was empty too. She made a rapid tour of all the other rooms in case Rose Anne should have felt an urge to admire herself in Aunt Hortensia’s mirror or to powder her nose at Uncle James’s shaving-glass. But all the rooms were empty.

Elfreda wasn’t frightened yet. She was puzzled, and a little bit cross, because dinner was going to be absolutely grim if Aunt Hortensia lost her temper.

She came back to Rose Anne’s room, and the first faint feeling of fear came knocking at the door of her mind, because Rose Anne hadn’t changed. She hadn’t even begun to change. She had been going to wear one of her new dresses, a blue and silver brocade, high in the neck and long in the sleeve, in which she looked like one of the lovelier Italian angels, but the dress was on its hanger, and the silver shoes and pale grey stockings were there on the bed, just where Elfreda herself had laid them out before tea. The hot water was still in its can.

Elfreda opened her door, and the fear came in. It was past a quarter to eight, and Rose Anne hadn’t come up to dress. She looked into cupboard and wardrobe. There was no sign of the clothes which Rose Anne had been wearing—blue jumper, blue tweed skirt. There was no sign either of something else, the warm tweed coat which belonged to the suit. Rose Anne hadn’t been wearing the coat, but she must be wearing it now, because it was nowhere to be found, and that meant that Rose Anne had gone out.

Elfreda got as far as that, and remembered Rose Anne at the telephone saying, “I don’t see how I can—it’s too late,” and then, “I oughtn’t to.” And had she said “but” after that—or hadn’t she?

She pushed the fear out of her mind and slammed the door on it, because there was only one thing that would have made Rose Anne run out like that. Florrie Garstnet must have had one of those crying fits they had been talking about at tea, and Mrs Garstnet had had the nerve to send for Rose Anne.

Elfreda went down to the schoolroom in a boiling rage. It really was outrageous, and for the first time in her life she felt in sympathetic agreement with Aunt Hortensia. Florrie wanted slapping, and Mrs Garstnet wanted to be told where she got off. She was going to be told too—by Elfreda Moore, and no later than this very minute. She jerked the receiver from its hook, asked briskly for the Angel, and waited, spoiling for a row.

And after all there wasn’t one, only Mrs Garstnet’s comfortable voice saying,

“Miss Rose Anne? Oh, no, she’s not here, Miss Elfreda.”

Fear tried the latch again. Anger took wing and was gone.

“You haven’t seen her?”

“Oh, yes, my dear—she came down. Florrie had one of her fits, and Matthew said, ‘We can’t trouble Miss Rose Anne for her, not tonight we can’t.’ And I said, ‘Don’t you be a fool, Matthew. She’d never forgive us if Florrie was to cry herself sick and not able to come to the wedding.’ So I rang up, and she said she’d come over just for a minute like, and so she did.”

“You shouldn’t have asked her,” said Elfreda—“you really shouldn’t. There’s a drawing-room full of relations all waiting for their dinner, and Sarah probably throwing fits in the kitchen, and what Aunt Hortensia’s going to say, I don’t know. When did she start back?”

“Now, my dear, don’t you go upsetting yourself. And it’s all very well to say ‘You shouldn’t,’ but we couldn’t do nothing with Florrie, and the minute she see Miss Rose Anne she quietened down.”

“When did Rose Anne leave?” said Elfreda in her most determined voice.

Mrs Garstnet was one of those slow, diffuse talkers who can’t tell you anything unless they tell you everything. If you put her out, she just went back to the beginning and started all over again. Elfreda ought to have known this.

“Now, Miss Elfreda, don’t you upset yourself. I’m sure it was heart-aching to see her. We couldn’t do nothing with her—nothing at all. Matthew as good as promised her a pony. There’s one he could get cheap that’d be the very thing for her—been ridden regular by Mr Jackson’s little girl that’s gone to boarding-school—but he couldn’t get Florrie to take no manner of notice. ‘Well, Florrie,’ I said, ‘if that isn’t ungrateful! I’m sure either of your step-sisters ’ud have jumped out of their skins for the chance’—that’s Matthew’s two by his first—Fanny’s married since you was here last year, but we’ve still got Mabel at home.”

“Mrs Garstnet, when did Rose Anne leave you?”

“Why, my dear, we didn’t keep her no time. Florrie come round beautiful, and—”

“When did she leave you? Mrs Garstnet, please.”

“Now, now, Miss Elfreda—you don’t give me time to tell you nothing. When did she leave? Now let me see—just after the half hour it was when she come in, because the bar clock was striking, and it’s a minute or two slow.”

“Half past six?” It was half past six when she had seen Rose Anne at the telephone. She must have run across the road to the Angel straight away.

“Yes, half past six,” said Mrs Garstnet in her comfortable voice. “And she wasn’t above ten minutes with Florrie, and then Matthew and me we arst her into the parlour for a minute just to wish her happy and to drink her health. And she wouldn’t touch nothing but just my ginger wine that she always had such a fancy for, so we drank it in that, and she must have been out of the house by ten minutes to seven.”

More than an hour ago—more than an hour ago—and the Angel just across the road from the Vicarage....

Elfreda said in a slow, cold voice, “Then where is she?”

“Oh, my dear soul—hasn’t she come home?”

“No, she hasn’t.”

“She must have done.”

“I’ve looked everywhere. They’re all in the drawing-room waiting for dinner, and Rose Anne isn’t anywhere at all.”

“Oh, my dear soul!” said Mrs Garstnet. She must have dropped the receiver at her end. There was a thud and a bang. Elfreda could hear her calling, “Matthew—Matthew!”

Then the schoolroom door opened and Oliver Loddon came in.

“Where’s Rose Anne? They’re getting a bit restive in the drawing-room. She isn’t—ill?”

Elfreda turned round with the receiver in her hand. She knew that her knees were shaking, but she didn’t know how pale she was. Oliver’s heart stood still. Without the least warning his happiness had crashed. Like a flash of light—no, like a flash of darkness—there came the conviction that it was all over. He had lost Rose Anne. He said very quietly,

“What is it?”

“She went over to the Angel. She hasn’t come back.”

A wave of relief surged up. It broke against that unreasoning conviction and fell back again. The conviction held.

“When did she go?”

“Half past six,” said Elfreda with a frightened catch in her voice. “And she hasn’t come back. They sent for her because Florrie was bad, but Mrs Garstnet swears she left at ten minutes to seven.”

“She couldn’t have—or if she did she’s in the house. Where have you looked?”

“Everywhere.” This time the catch had become a sob.

“Ten minutes to seven—” said Oliver, still in that quiet voice.

The clock in the hall outside struck eight.