sordid cause, that she sacrificed the
inestimable jewel of her honour? He laughed through clenched teeth at
a situation so bitterly ironical. Presently he would talk to her. She
should realise what she had done, and he would wish her joy of it.
First, however, there was something else to do. He flung himself wearily
into the chair at his writing-table, took up a pen and began to write.

CHAPTER XIX. THE TRUTH

To Captain Tremayne, fretted with impatience in the diningroom, came,
at the end of a long hour of waiting, Sylvia Armytage. She entered
unannounced, at a moment when for the third time he was on the point of
ringing for Mullins, and for a moment they stood considering each
other mutually ill at ease. Then Miss Armytage closed the door and came
forward, moving with that grace peculiar to her, and carrying her head
erect, facing Captain Tremayne now with some lingering signs of the
defiance she had shown the members of the court-martial.

"Mullins tells me that you wish to see me," she said the merest
conventionality to break the disconcerting, uneasy silence.

"After what has happened that should not surprise you," said Tremayne.
His agitation was clear to behold, his usual imperturbability all
departed. "Why," he burst out suddenly, "why did you do it?"

She looked at him with the faintest ghost of a smile on her lips, as if
she found the question amusing. But before she could frame any answer he
was speaking again, quickly and nervously.

"Could you suppose that I should wish to purchase my life at such a
price? Could you suppose that your honour was not more precious to me
than my life? It was infamous that you should have sacrificed yourself
in this manner."

"Infamous of whom?" she asked him coolly.

The question gave him pause. "I don't know!" he cried desperately.
"Infamous of the circumstances, I suppose."

She shrugged. "The circumstances were there, and they had to be met. I
could think of no other way of meeting them."

Hastily he answered her out of his anger for her sake: "It should not
have been your affair to meet them at all."

He saw the scarlet flush sweep over her face and leave it deathly white,
and instantly he perceived how horribly he had blundered.

"I'm sorry to have been interfering," she answered stiffly, "but, after
all, it is not a matter that need trouble you." And on the words she
turned to depart again. "Good-day, Captain Tremayne."

"Ah, wait!" He flung himse