liqueur, Andrew,
and if you want to we'll talk about my plans for the future."

The brandy was brought. Wilmore studied his friend curiously, not
without some relief. Francis had lost the harassed and nervous
appearance upon which his club friends had commented, which had been
noticeable, even, to a diminishing extent, upon the golf course at
Brancaster. He was alert and eager. He had the air of a man upon the
threshold of some enterprise dear to his heart.

"I have been through a queer experience," Francis continued presently,
as he sipped his second liqueur. "Not only had I rather less than twelve
hours to make up my mind whether I should commit a serious offence
against the law, but a sensation which I always hoped that I might
experience, has come to me in what I suppose I must call most
unfortunate fashion."

"The woman?" Wilmore ventured.

Francis assented gloomily. There was a moment's silence. Wilmore, the
metaphysician, saw then a strange thing. He saw a light steal across his
friend's stern face. He saw his eyes for a moment soften, the hard mouth
relax, something incredible, transforming, shine, as it were, out of
the man's soul in that moment of self-revelation. It was gone like the
momentary passing of a strange gleam of sunshine across a leaden sea,
but those few seconds were sufficient. Wilmore knew well enough what had
happened.

"Oliver Hilditch's wife," Francis went on, after a few minutes' pause,
"presents an enigma which at present I cannot hope to solve. The fact
that she received her husband back again, knowing what he was and
what he was capable of, is inexplicable to me. The woman herself is a
mystery. I do not know what lies behind her extraordinary immobility.
Feeling she must have, and courage, or she would never have dared to
have ridded herself of the scourge of her life. But beyond that my
judgment tells me nothing. I only know that sooner or later I shall seek
her out. I shall discover all that I want to know, one way or the other.
It may be for happiness--it may be the end of the things that count."

"I guessed this," Wilmore admitted, with a little shiver which he was
wholly unable to repress.

Francis nodded.

"Then keep it to yourself, my dear fellow," he begged, "like everything
else I am telling you tonight. I have come out of my experience changed
in many ways," he continued, "but, leaving out that one secret chapter,
this is the dominant factor which looms up before me. I