She recalled, in course of time, a horrible scene in which all three of them had raved at each other, and she herself had shrieked and laughed and hurled wild words at Nigel, and he had struck her.

That she knew and never forgot.

She had been ill a year, her hair had fallen out, her skin had faded and she had begun to feel like a nervous, tired old woman instead of a girl.

Girlhood, with all the past, had become unreal and too far away to be more than a dream.

Nothing had remained real but Stornham and Nigel and the little hunchbacked baby.