at, and
leaned forward, an elbow on its arm, her chin in one hand, her gaze on
the fire. His perception sharpened to the knowledge that something
important was coming, and that it was something she was afraid to tell.
She had keyed herself up to it, but the slightest false move on his part
might check the revelation. Therefore, though every impulse in him
responded to her first intimate use of his name, he dropped negligently
into the chair facing hers, tenderly embraced his knees with both arms,
and answered with just the right accent of casual interest and
interrogation.

"Yes?" he said.

"Please smoke." Again she was playing for time. "And--and don't look at
me," she added, almost harshly. "I--I think I can get it out better if
you don't."

His answer was to swing his chair around beside hers, facing the blazing
logs, and to take out his case and light a cigarette.

"I'm going to tell you everything," she said in a low tone.

"I'm glad of that."

"I'm going to do it," she went on slowly, "for two reasons. The first is
that--that you've lost faith in me."

This brought his eyes around to hers in a quick glance. "You're wrong
about that."

She shook her head. "Oh, no, I'm not. You showed it almost from the
moment you came, and there was an instant when you thought that my
suggestion to wait till dark to get away meant a--a sort of ambush."

He made no reply to this, and she said urgently, "Didn't you? Come, now.
Confess."

He reflected for a moment.

"The idea did cross my mind," he admitted, at last. "But it didn't
linger. For one reason, it was impossible to reconcile it with Shaw's
desire to keep me out of the way. That, and this, are hard to
understand. But no harder to understand," he went on, "than that you
should willingly come here and yet send for me, and then quite obviously
delay our leaving after I get here."

Again her eyes dropped before his brilliant, steady glance.

"I know," she muttered, almost inaudibly. "It's all--horrible. It's
infinitely worse than you suspect. And that's why I'm going to tell you
the truth, big as the cost may be to me."

"Wait a minute," he interrupted. "Let's get this straight. You're
telling me, aren't you, that any revelation you make now will react on
you. Is that it?"

"Yes."

"You will be the chief sufferer by it?"

"Yes."

"Will it help you any to have me understand? Will it straighten out the
trouble you're in?"

She considered her answer.