“You don’t know? But, darling!” Pippa’s eyes were alive with interest. “Surely Aunt Esther-”

“She hasn’t the slightest idea.”

“You mean he just broke it all off and disappeared?”

“Something like that.”

She wouldn’t turn away. It didn’t really make things any worse to speak of them. Sometimes it made them better, and-it was only Pippa.

“But Carmona! Darling, you’ve simply got to tell me all about it! When I had your wire to say it was all off I wanted to rush to you! But Bill put his foot down-you know, he does sometimes. He said I couldn’t do any good, and he was sure you’d rather not, and it wasn’t reasonable to expect him to put up about a hundred pounds for me to fly home just to hold your hand. I could see his point, you know, and when he is like that I do find it’s better to do what he says. Darling, you did understand, didn’t you?”

“Of course.”

“You must tell me all about it now. What did you quarrel over?”

“We didn’t.”

Pippa’s voice rose a third of an octave.

“Didn’t quarrel? But, darling!”

Better get on with it.

“He just didn’t turn up.”

“On your wedding day!”

“Yes.”

“Darling, how perfectly frightful! You don’t mean to say you were there waiting at the church!”

“Yes.”

It was hurting horribly. Much more than she had thought it would. It was hurting like hell. The grey church, cold and dark, with that odd smell which empty places have. Empty- at least thank God for that! Only Tom, and Maisie, and kind Esther there to look on whilst she waited for Alan who didn’t come. A parson and a verger too, but they didn’t count. Grey old men quite alien from what was happening to her, their own days of quick anguish and hot tears all past and gone. She looked vaguely at Pippa, but she did not see her. She saw the empty church.

“Darling, how frightful! But what on earth made him do a thing like that? If he wanted to break it off, why didn’t he do it properly? I just can’t imagine Alan-Alan getting cold feet at the last minute and not being able to come up to the scratch! Carmona, he must have written! Something must have happened to the letter-or to him!”