or treachery and deceit. And yet this seemed the real thing. He wanted
to believe it. In fact, he did believe it; it was simply the habit of
his experience warning him to beware--and because it was a woman it
warned him all the more.... Yet he cast experience aside--and also the
fact that she was a woman--and accepted her story as truth. Maybe he
would regret it; maybe she was playing him; maybe she was laughing
behind her mask; maybe he was all kinds of a fool--nevertheless, he
would trust her. It was--

"I'm glad you have decided that I'm not a diplomat--and that you will
trust me," she broke in. "I'm just an ordinary woman, Mr. Harleston, just
a very ordinary woman."

He held out his hand. She took it instantly.

"A very extraordinary woman, you mean, dear lady," he said gravely. "In
some ways the most extraordinary that I have ever known."

"It's not in the line of diplomacy, I hope," she shrugged.

"Not the feminine line, I assure you; Madeline Spencer is typical of it,
and the top of her class--which means she is wonderfully clever,
inscrutable as fate, and without scruple or conscience. No, thank God,
you do not belong in the class of feminine diplomats!"

"Thank you, Mr. Harleston!" she said gently, permitting him, for an
instant, to look deep into her brown eyes. "Now, since you trust me, I
want to refer briefly to Mrs. Spencer's insinuation."

"Robert Clephane was all that she said--and more. Middle-aged when he
married me, before a year was passed I had found that I was only another
experience for him; and that after a short time he had resumed his ways
of--gaiety. Not caring to be pitied, nor to be so soon a deserted wife,
nor yet to admit my loss of attraction for him, I dashed into the gay
life of Paris with reckless fervour. I know I was indiscreet. I know I
fractured conventionality and was dreadfully compromised--but I never
violated the Seventh Commandment. Robert Clephane and I were not
separated--except by a locked door.

"Then one day some two years back, dreadfully mangled, they brought him
home. An aeroplane had fallen with him--with the usual result. That
moment saw the end of my gay life. I passed it up as completely as
though it had never been. The reason for it was gone. After a very
short period of mourning, I took up the quietness of a respectable
widow, who wished only to forget that she ever was married."

"I can understand exactly," said Harleston. "You shall never hear a word
f