chunk: But Elsbeth Loveday's scheme includes more than her niece's mere convalescence. As planned by her aunt, Alwynne Durand finds a confidant, and secret admirer, in thirty-year-old Roger Lumsden, a good-hearted, intelligent and handsome man who runs his own gardening business. Completely inexperienced with men except for what she has read in novels, Alwynne does not recognise her feelings for Lumsden as love, and she still looks forward to her reunion with Hartill. When she eventually returns to her home town, Lumsden follows her, proposes to her, and, naturally, is rejected. Only when Hartill, too sure of her seemingly inseparable bond with Alwynne, continues treating her badly does Alwynne wake up to reality. She sends Hartill a telegram telling her she has taken the train to the country in order to get married.