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embarrassment. He liked jollity and good fellowship. In the presence of grief he very heartily wished himself elsewhere.
    â€œOh, Mr Carew, I can’t say no different!” sobbed Mrs Garstnet.
    Mr Carew sat up stiffly in the parlour’s best plush chair. His face was grey, and a muscle in his cheek twitched perpetually. He tapped on his knee and said sharply.
    â€œStop crying! You’ve got to help us. We shall have to go to the police. You were the last person who saw her. What was she wearing?”
    Mrs Garstnet dabbed at her eyes with a soaking handkerchief.
    â€œHer blue jumper and skirt, sir—and the coat that goes with them.”
    â€œMiss Elfreda said there was a coat. She was wearing it?”
    â€œOh, yes, sir.”
    â€œI don’t notice clothes. What sort of coat would it be? I mean—” He stopped, steadied his voice, and went on again. “Would it be the sort of coat she would wear if she meant—to take a journey?”
    Oliver stood still by the window. The world stood still about him. That would be said, that would be thought—that Rose Anne had run away rather than marry him. There would be headlines in the press. What did it matter as long as she was safe? He would give his soul to know that she was safe.
    Mrs Garstnet was babbling about the coat.
    â€œA beautiful coat, sir, and such a lovely fur collar—one of the things she’d got for her trousseau. And I told her she didn’t rightly ought to wear it, not till she was married.”
    â€œWhat did she say when you said that?” said Oliver. His voice was better under control than James Carew’s.
    Mrs Garstnet looked at him with her face working.
    â€œShe said, ‘It’s warm, Nannie. I had to have something warm.’”
    â€œYou’re sure she said that?”
    â€œOh, yes, sir.”
    â€œAnd it was the sort of coat she would wear for a journey?”
    â€œOh, yes, sir—lovely and warm.”
    â€œWas she wearing a hat?” said Oliver. He forced himself to the question.
    Elfreda had said no. She said there was no hat missing. She said anyhow Rose Anne wouldn’t put on a hat to run over to the Angel. But if Elfreda was wrong, if Rose Anne had been wearing a hat, then it would mean that she had meant to go farther than the Angel. How far, no one but herself could say. The question came hardly to his lips.
    And Mrs Garstnet hesitated. She looked at Oliver with brimming eyes and said with a catch in her breath,
    â€œNot when she come, sir.”
    Mr Carew drummed on his knee.
    â€œGood gracious! What do you mean by that?”
    â€œShe didn’t have anything on her head when she come,” said Mrs Garstnet dabbing hard. “She borrowed Florrie’s hat to go back with.”
    â€œFlorrie’s hat? Good gracious, Mrs Garstnet, why on earth did she borrow Florrie’s hat?”
    Mrs Garstnet gulped.
    â€œIt was one she give Florrie only a couple of days ago. As good as new it was, only she didn’t fancy herself in it so she give it to Florrie, and Florrie looked a treat in it, green being her colour as you might say.”
    Oliver broke in harshly.
    â€œIt was a green hat?”
    â€œAs green as grass, and Florrie was that pleased with it.”
    â€œAnd Rose Anne took it back after giving it away?” This was James Carew with a faint note of surprise in his voice.
    â€œWe didn’t take it that way, not at the time, sir. The hat was hanging on a peg, and Miss Rose Anne she said, ‘Will you give me the loan of it, just to go back across the road? There was a drop or two of rain as I come along,’ she said, ‘and I don’t want to get my hair wet,’ she said. So I told her she was welcome, and she put on the hat and come along down for us to drink her health. And that’s the last we saw of her.”
    â€œI’d like to see Florrie,” said Oliver.
    Matthew Garstnet made an awkward