"Mellyora gave me that name."

"Oh ... Mellyora!"

I told him all that had happened while he was away at the University, how Mellyora had seen me at the fair and taken me home.

He listened intently.

"I'm glad it happened," he told me. "It's good for you and for her."

I glowed with pleasure. He was so different from Johnny St. Larnston.

"And your brother?" he asked. "How is he getting on with the vet?"

"You knew?"

He laughed. "I'm rather interested in his progress since it was I who mentioned to Pollent what an asset he would be."

"You ... spoke to Pollent?"

"I did. Made him promise to give the boy a chance."

"I see. I suppose I should thank you."

"Don't if you'd rather not."

"But my Granny is so pleased. He's getting on well. The vet is pleased with him and ..." I heard the note of pride in my voice. "... he's pleased with the vet."

"Good news. I thought that a boy who would risk so much for the sake of a bird must have a special gift. So ... all goes well."

"Yes," I repeated, "all goes well."

"May I say that I think you have grown up just as I thought you would."

"And how is that?"

"You have become an extremely fascinating young lady."

What a number of emotions I experienced on that night, for dancing with Kim I knew absolute happiness. I wished it could have gone on. But dances quickly come to an end when you have the partner of your choice, and all too soon the clocks which had been brought into the hall to strike at the midnight hour began chiming at once. The music stopped. It was time to take off our masks.

Johnny St. Larnston passed near us; he grinned at me.

"It's no surprise," he said, "but still a pleasure."

And there was a purpose in his mocking smile.

Kim led me outside so that no one else would know that Miss Carlyon was really poor Kerensa Carlee.

As Belter drove us home to the parsonage neither Mellyora nor I spoke very much. We were both still hearing the music, caught up in the rhythm of the dance. It was a night we should never forget; later we would talk of it but now we were still bemused and enchanted.

We went soberly to our rooms. I was physically tired and yet had no desire to sleep. While I kept on my red velvet gown I was still a young lady who went to balls, but once I took it off life would become less exciting. In fact. Miss Carlyon would become Kerensa Carlee.

But obviously I could not stand before the mirror staring dreamily at my reflection all night, so by the light of two candles I reluctantly took the comb from my hair and let it fall about my shoulders, undressed, and hung up the red velvet gown. "You have become an extremely fascinating young lady," I said.

Then I thought of how exciting my life was going to be because it was true that life was yours to make as you wanted to.

It was difficult to sleep. I kept thinking of myself dancing with Kim, fighting with Johnny, hiding in the cupboard, and that horrific moment when I had opened the door of Sir Justin's room and seen him.

So it wasn't surprising that when I did sleep I had a nightmare. I dreamed that Johnny had walled me up and that I was suffocating while Mellyora was trying to pull away the bricks with her bare hands and I knew that she would not be able to save me in time.

I awoke screaming to find Mellyora standing by my bed. Her golden hair was about her shoulders and she had not put a dressing gown over her flannelette nightdress.

"Wake up, Kerensa," she said. "You're having a nightmare."

I sat up and stared at her hands.

"What on earth was it?"

"I dreamed I was walled up and that you were trying to save me. I was suffocating."

"I don't wonder at it, you were buried right under the bedclothes and think of all that dash-an-darras and mead."

She sat on my bed laughing at me; but I could still feel my nightmare hanging over me.

"What an evening!" she said, and clasping her knees stared before her. As the sense of nightmare faded I remembered what I had heard from the cupboard. It was Mellyora's dancing with Justin which had provoked Judith's jealousy.

I sat up. "You danced with Justin, didn't you?" I said.

"Of course."

"His wife didn't like his dancing with you."

"How do you know?"

I told her what had happened to me. Her eyes opened wide and she sprang up, took me by the shoulders and shook me. "Kerensa, I might have known that something would happen to you! Tell me every word you heard when you were in the cupboard."

"I have ... as far as I can remember. I was horribly scared."

"I should think so. What on earth made you?"

"I don't know. I just thought it was the only thing to do at the time. Was she right, Mellyora?"

"Right?"

"To be jealous."

Mellyora laughed. "She is married to him," she said; and I was not sure whether the flippancy hid a certain bitterness.

We were silent for a while, each preoccupied with her own thoughts. I was the one to break it. I said: "I think you have always liked Justin."

It was a time for confidences and indiscretions. The magic of the ball was still with us, and Mellyora and I were closer that night than we had been before.

"He's different from Johnny," she said.

"I should hope for his wife's sake that he is."

"No one would be safe with Johnny around. Justin doesn't seem to notice people."

"Meaning Grecians with long golden hair?"

"Meaning everybody. He seems remote."

"Perhaps he ought to have been a monk rather than a husband."

"What things you say!" She started to talk of Justin then: the first time she and her father had been invited to take tea with the St. Larnstons; how she had worn a sprigged muslin dress for the occasion; how polite Justin had been. I could see that she had a kind of childish adoration for him and I hoped that was all because I didn't want her to be hurt.

"By the way," she said, "Kim told me he was going away."

"Oh?"

"To Australia, I think."

"Right away?" My voice sounded blank in spite of my efforts to control it.

"For a long time. He's going to sail with his father but he said he might stay in Australia for a time because he has an uncle there."

The enchantment of the ball seemed to have disappeared.

"Are you tired?" asked Mellyora.

"Well, it must be very late."

"Early morning rather."

"We ought to get some sleep."

She nodded and went into her own room. Strange how we both seemed suddenly to have lost our exhilaration. Was it because she was thinking of Justin and his passionately loving wife? Was it because I was thinking of Kim who was going away and had told her and not me?

It was about a week after the ball when Dr. Milliard paid a visit to the parsonage. I was on the front lawn when his brougham drew up and he called good morning to me. I knew that the Reverend Charles had been seeing him recently and I guessed that he had come to discover how he was.

"The Reverend Charles Martin is not at home," I told him.

"Good. It is Miss Martin I have come to see. Is she at home?"

"Oh, yes."

"Then would you be so kind as to tell her I'm here."

"Certainly," I said. "Pray, come in."

I took him into the drawing room and went to find Mellyora. She was sewing in her room and seemed startled when I told her that Dr. Milliard wanted to see her.

She hurried down to him at once and I went into my room, wondering if Mellyora was ill and had been consulting the doctor secretly.

Half an hour later the brougham drove away, and the door of my room was flung open and Mellyora came in. Her face was white and her eyes looked almost dark; I had never seen her like that before.

"Oh, Kerensa," she said, "this is terrible."

"Tell me what it's all about."

"It's Papa. Dr. Hilliard says he is gravely ill."

"Oh ... Mellyora."

"He says Papa has some sort of growth and that he had advised him to have a second opinion. Papa didn't tell me. I didn't know he'd been seeing these doctors. Well, now they think they know. Kerensa, I can't bear it. They say he's going to die."

"But they can't know."

"They're almost certain. Three months, Dr. Hilliard thinks."

"Oh, no!"

"He says that Papa mustn't go on working because he's on the verge of collapse. He wants him to go to bed and rest... ." She buried her face in her hands; I went to her and put my arms round her. We clung together.

"They can't be sure," I insisted.

But I didn't believe that. I knew now that I had seen death in the Reverend Charles's face.

Everything had changed. Each day the Reverend Charles was a little worse. Mellyora and I nursed him. She insisted on giving him every attention and I insisted on helping her.

David Killigrew had come to the parsonage. He was a curate who was to take over the parson's duties until, as they said, something could be arranged. They really meant until the Reverend Charles died.

The autumn came and Mellyora and I hardly ever went out. We did few lessons, although Miss Kellow was still with us, because most of our time was spent in and out of the sickroom. It was a strangely different household; and I think we were all grateful for David Killigrew, who was in his late twenties and one of the gentlest people I had ever met. He went quietly about the house, making very little trouble; yet he could preach a good sermon and attend to parish affairs with an efficiency which was amazing.