Already the pain had begun, and yet with it was
that queer sense of exaltation which comes with sacrifice.

"We have been very nearly foolish," he told her, with grave kindliness.
"It is well, perhaps, that we were in time. Those windows which lead
into your library,--through which I first came to you, by-the-by,--" he
added, with a strange, reminiscent little sigh, "are they open?"

"Yes!" she whispered.

"Come, then," he invited. "Before I leave there is something I want to
make clear to you."

They made their way rather like two conspirators along the little
terraced walk. Philippa opened the window and closed it again behind
them. The room was empty. Lessingham, watching her closely, almost
groaned as he saw the wonderful relief in her face. She threw off the
cloak, and he groaned again as he remembered how nearly it had been his
task to remove it. In her plain travelling dress, she turned and looked
at him very pathetically.

"You have, perhaps, a morning paper here?" he enquired.

"A newspaper? Why, yes, the Times," she answered, a little surprised.

He took it from the table towards which she pointed, and held it under
the lamplight. Presently he called to her. His forefinger rested upon a
certain column.

"Read this," he directed.

She read it out in a tone which passed from surprise to blank wonder:

Commander Sir Henry Cranston, Baronet, to receive the D.S.O. for special
services, and to be promoted to the rank of Acting Rear-Admiral.

"What does it mean?" she asked feverishly. "Henry? A D.S.O. for Henry
for special services?"

"It means," he told her, with a forced smile, "that your husband is, as
you put it in your expressive language, a fraud."

CHAPTER XXXII

For a moment Philippa was unsteady upon her feet. Lessingham led her to
a chair. From outside came the low, cautious hooting of the motor horn,
calling to its dilatory passenger.

"I can not, of course, explain everything to you," he began, in a tone
of unusual restraint, "but I do know that for the last two years your
husband has been responsible to the Admiralty for most of the mine
fields around your east coast. To begin with, his stay in Scotland was
a sham. He was most of the time with the fleet and round the coasts. His
fishing excursions from here have been of the same order, only more so.
All the places of importance, from here to the mouth of the Thames, have
been mined, or rather the approaches to them have been mined