isunderstandings."

"Did she love him?" Trent inquired abruptly. Mr. Cupples did not reply
at once. "Had she any love left for him?" Trent amended.

Mr. Cupples played with his teaspoon. "I am bound to say," he answered
slowly, "that I think not. But you must not misunderstand the woman,
Trent. No power on earth would have persuaded her to admit that to any
one--even to herself, perhaps--so long as she considered herself bound
to him. And I gather that, apart from this mysterious sulking of late,
he had always been considerate and generous."

"You were saying that she refused to have it out with him."

"She did," replied Mr. Cupples. "And I knew by experience that it was
quite useless to attempt to move a Domecq where the sense of dignity was
involved. So I thought it over carefully, and next day I watched my
opportunity and met Manderson as he passed by this hotel. I asked him to
favor me with a few minutes' conversation, and he stepped inside the
gate down there. We had held no communication of any kind since my
niece's marriage, but he remembered me, of course. I put the matter to
him at once and quite definitely. I told him what Mabel had confided to
me. I said that I would neither approve nor condemn her action in
bringing me into the business, but that she was suffering, and I
considered it my right to ask how he could justify himself in placing
her in such a position."

"And how did he take that?" said Trent, smiling secretly at the
landscape. The picture of this mildest of men calling the formidable
Manderson to account pleased him.

"Not very well," Mr. Cupples replied sadly. "In fact, far from well. I
can tell you almost exactly what he said--it wasn't much. He said, 'See
here, Cupples, you don't want to butt in. My wife can look after
herself. I've found that out, along with other things.' He was perfectly
quiet--you know he was said never to lose control of himself--though
there was a light in his eyes that would have frightened a man who was
in the wrong, I dare say. But I had been thoroughly roused by his last
remark, and the tone of it, which I cannot reproduce. You see," said Mr.
Cupples simply, "I love my niece. She is the only child that there has
been in our--in my house. Moreover, my wife brought her up as a girl,
and any reflection on Mabel I could not help feeling, in the heat of the
moment, as an indirect reflection upon one who is gone."

"You turned upon him," suggested Trent in a low ton