othing about his past, where he lived,
who his people were or anything. I know nothing that he enjoyed or
laughed at before I saw him lying quietly in our hospital-ward in
France. I've questioned him as much as I dared; but always he grows
vague. There's something that he's hiding from me. I only gathered that
he had known you from the way he pricked up and listened whenever your
name was mentioned. That was why, without warning either of you,
I----You see, I had to find out. And then, when he met you face to face
he--he lied."

"Hush, Terry."

"But he did. He lied."

She had withdrawn her hands from his and sat back eyeing him with a
clear look of challenge. Tabs was at a loss to explain her change of
attitude. Yesterday she had been all for defending this man. What did
she gain by accusing him now that she was engaged to him? In any case
she had employed too ugly a word. And here was a strange state of
affairs, that it should be left to him to defend his successful rival.

"A man is not compelled to know another man unless he likes," he said
cautiously. "They may have met some time in the past under unfortunate
circumstances--circumstances which are embarrassing to remember. The man
to whom that memory is a disadvantage has a right to protect himself by
sweeping it clean from his mind."

"But not to lie about it to the girl he says he loves," she declared.
"There can be only one motive for such a denial: that it covers up
something which is dishonorable."

"But there never was anything dishonorable. That I swear."

"Then he believes that I would think it dishonorable," she insisted;
"which means that he doesn't trust me. That's the reason I can't trust
him in return. If we don't trust each other now, how can we hope that
things would be better if we married?"

Her logic was unanswerable, but she was arguing on the wrong side. At
what was she driving? He gave it up. Was she wanting him to tell her
where and when he and her future husband had met? The eagerness of her
silence seemed to demand as much. But there are rules to every game. No
pressure that she could bring to bear could make him tell her that. She
recognized those rules by refraining from putting her request into
words.

It was he who broke the silence. His tones were puzzled. "You come to me
on the morning that I had hoped to be engaged to you myself and you
confide all these secrets about this other man. You insist that neither
of you trusts th