Across the bottom of Mrs.Browne's formal little note, her husband had jauntily scrawled: "_Just to see how small we'll feel in a ninety by seventy dining-room_" Lady Deppingham flushed and her eyes glittered as she handed the note to her husband.
"Rubbish!" she exclaimed.

Paying no heed to the wistful look in his eyes or to the appealing shuffle of his foot, she sent back a dignified little reply to the effect that "A previous engagement would prevent, etc." The polite lie made it necessary for them to venture forth at dinner time to eat their solitary meal of sardines and wafers in the grove below.

The menu was limited to almost nothing because Deppy refused to fill his pockets with "tinned things and biscuit." The next day they moved into the west wing, and that evening they had the Brownes to dine with them in the banquet hall.

Deppingham awoke in the middle of the night with violent cramps in his stomach.

He suffered in silence for a long time, but, the pain growing steadily worse, his stoicism gave way to alarm.