She wanted to ask why her palpitations had gone off so quickly, and why she seemed perfectly at home in the "Angel", but her thoughts crowded heel on heel so fast that she had forgotten them before she could speak.
She remembered that a few weeks ago the housekeeper's husband had died of typhoid in the Never Never country, and Mrs Herring had nursed him bravely to the end.

She tried to reconcile this with his death this afternoon in the Boer War, and decided that it didn't matter.

He must have died somewhere, for no one had ever seen him.

She was discovering slowly that this woman was a consummate liar, who lied as the birds sing, but forgot her many inventions, a born liar without a memory.
Suddenly Mrs Herring said she must be going, and Ada got up to leave.
She lurched as she stood, and pushed her chair over with a clumsy movement.
"I b'lieve I'm drunk," she muttered, with a foolish titter..