ake me in hand and teach me if it isn't too much
trouble. I suppose you didn't like me to tell Chris she was lying about
that letter. But she was, you know. There's no getting away from that
fact, even if she is your wife."

"I'm not trying to get away from facts," Mordaunt said. "But I do
object--strongly--to discourtesy. You may be her brother, but that
doesn't entitle you to insult her. Plainly, I won't have it from you or
anyone."

"I didn't insult her," declared Noel. "I only said I knew she was telling
a cram. She knew it too."

"I know what you said," Mordaunt returned with brevity. "And you are not
to say it again. Also, I must ask you to bear in mind that when I say a
thing I mean it--invariably. I've had more than enough disobedience from
you lately."

"Oh, I say," said Noel, winking gaily, "you don't want much, do you?"

Mordaunt relaxed a little. He put his hand on the boy's shoulder for a
moment. "You can be quite a good chap if you try," he said.

Noel responded like a dog to a caress. "The mischief is to keep it up,"
he said. "But we won't quarrel anyhow. I'll make every allowance for you,
old boy, for you're in a beastly unhealthy position; and you'll have to
do the same--savvy? But for all that, that letter was no more written by
Mrs. Pouncefort than by the man in the moon."

"That letter," Mordaunt said very deliberately, "is neither your affair
nor mine."

Could he have seen Chris at that moment he might have changed his mind
upon that point, but her young brother's careless chatter kept him from
seeking her; nor would he very readily have found her had he done so.

For Chris was securely locked in a little room at the top of the house
that had been her childhood's bedroom, and here with blanched face and
hands that shook she was reading and reading again the letter that had
given rise to so much discussion.

The handwriting was cramped and erratic, wholly unfamiliar, barely
decipherable; but she had mastered the contents with tragic dexterity.
Her understanding had leaped to the words.

* * * * *

"MY DEAR MRS. MORDAUNT," so went the letter, "You have probably forgotten
my existence by this time, and it is with the utmost humility that I
venture to recall it to your memory. For myself, it will always be a
lasting pleasure to have met you again, and the fact that I share with
you a secret of other days cannot but prove a bond between us. That
secret I am p