t slept a wink. Her pity for him would have given her any
courage, and she seemed to know at last why she had been such a fool.
"She didn't come?" she panted.

"Oh yes, she came; but there has been some mistake. We want a telegram."

"A telegram?"

"One that was sent from here ever so long ago. There was something in it
that has to be recovered. Something very, very important, please--we
want it immediately."

He really spoke to her as if she had been some strange young woman at
Knightsbridge or Paddington; but it had no other effect on her than to
give her the measure of his tremendous flurry. Then it was that, above
all, she felt how much she had missed in the gaps and blanks and absent
answers--how much she had had to dispense with: it was now black darkness
save for this little wild red flare. So much as that she saw, so much
her mind dealt with. One of the lovers was quaking somewhere out of
town, and the other was quaking just where he stood. This was vivid
enough, and after an instant she knew it was all she wanted. She wanted
no detail, no fact--she wanted no nearer vision of discovery or shame.
"When was your telegram? Do you mean you sent it from here?" She tried
to do the young woman at Knightsbridge.

"Oh yes, from here--several weeks ago. Five, six, seven"--he was
confused and impatient--"don't you remember?"

"Remember?" she could scarcely keep out of her face, at the word, the
strangest of smiles.

But the way he didn't catch what it meant was perhaps even stranger
still. "I mean, don't you keep the old ones?"

"For a certain time."

"But how long?"

She thought; she must do the young woman, and she knew exactly what the
young woman would say and, still more, wouldn't. "Can you give me the
date?"

"Oh God, no! It was some time or other in August--toward the end. It
was to the same address as the one I gave you last night."

"Oh!" said the girl, knowing at this the deepest thrill she had ever
felt. It came to her there, with her eyes on his face, that she held the
whole thing in her hand, held it as she held her pencil, which might have
broken at that instant in her tightened grip. This made her feel like
the very fountain of fate, but the emotion was such a flood that she had
to press it back with all her force. That was positively the reason,
again, of her flute-like Paddington tone. "You can't give us anything a
little nearer?" Her "little" and her "us" came straight