In the morning before they left Heronac, Sabine's elderly maid, Simone, came to her with the face she always wore when her speech might contain any reference to the past.

She had been with Sabine ever since the week after her marriage, and was a widow and a Parisian, with a kind and motherly heart.
"Will madame take the blue despatch-box with her as usual ?" she asked.
Sabine hesitated for a second.

She had never gone anywhere without it in all those five years--but now everything was changed.

It might be wiser to leave it safely at Heronac.

Then her eyes fell upon it, and a slight shudder came over her of the kind which people describe as "a goose walking over your grave." No, she could not leave it behind.
"I will take it, Simone." "As madame wishes," and the maid went on her way.
* * * * * When Sabine had reached London late on that evening in the June of 1907 on her leaving Scotland she found, in response to the wire she had sent him from Edinburgh, Mr.Parsons waiting for her at the station, his astonishment as great as his perturbation.
Her words had been few; her young mind had been firmly made up in the train coming south.