telephone to ring up his motor-brougham from the garage, when
he heard the click of her latchkey in the outer door and the silken
whisper of her garments passing quickly through the hallway. Then came a
knock at the consulting-room door--sharp, quick, imperious, oddly unlike
Lynette's soft tap.... At the summons Saxham made two strides across the
carpet and opened to her, a question on his lips.

"Why have you come back so early? Has anything happened?"

Even as he asked, her look told why. She knew....

She knew.... Her face was rigid, a pure white mask of ivory; there was not
a trace of colour even in the set lips. Her eyes burned upon him, twin
flames of dark amber, steady under levelled brows. She was wrapped in a
long ermine-caped and bordered black brocade mantle, that gleamed with jet
_passementerie_; a scarf of white lace covered her head. It hid the
red-brown hair with the Clytie ripple in it, and the great silken coils,
transfixed by a sapphire and diamond dagger, that were massed at the nape
of the slender neck. Seen so, she was nunlike in her chaste severity, but
for those stern, resentful eyes.

"I have come to tell you that I am no longer in ignorance. I have found
out what you have hidden from me so long--what the Wrynches knew and would
not tell me; what the world has known while I sat in the dark...."

A spasm wrung her mouth. Saxham rolled a chair towards her. He said
guardedly, avoiding her eyes:

"Until you acquaint me in detail with what you have heard, I cannot
explain or defend myself. Will you not sit down? You are looking pale and
overwrought."

She laid one slight gloved hand upon the chair-back, and leaned upon it.

"I would rather stand, if you have no objection, whilst I tell you what I
have learned to-night. I dined alone with Lady Hannah at the Carlton; we
went together to the theatre--Major Wrynche had had a summons to attend at
Marlborough House."

She untied the knot of lace beneath her chin, and stripped away the long
gloves with nervous haste and impatience, and tossed them with the scarf
upon the chair beside her, and went on:

"I had heard much of 'The Chiffon Girl.' I wanted to see it. When the
First Act began I wondered very much why they called it a Musical Comedy,
when the noise the orchestra made could hardly be called music; and there
was no comedy--only slang expressions and stupid jokes. But the actress
who sang and danced in the principal part ... Miss Lavigne ..