h to a man should be the
best--the best--what was it to you?" Bulstrode sat back and waited,
and the other man seemed quite lost in melancholy meditations for some
few seconds. Then Bulstrode put it: "For a young man, no matter how
wild, to leave his home under the misapprehension you claim:--for him
to make no effort to reinstate himself: with no attempt at justice: for
him to become a wanderer--there must be an extraordinary reason, almost
an improbable one----"

"I don't ask you to hear," said the vagrant, quickly.

"I wish to do so. It would have been a simple matter to exculpate
yourself--you had not the funds in your possession, had never had them.
You took no means to clear yourself?"

"None."

Bulstrode looked hard at the face his care had revealed to him: the
deep eyes, the neck, chin, the sensitive mouth--there was a certain
distinction about him in his borrowed clothes.

"Where is the woman now?"

"She married my brother--she is Lady Waring--my name," tardily
introduced the stranger, "is Cecil Waring."

Bulstrode bowed. "Tell me something of her, in a word--in a word."

"Well, she is always clever," said the young man, slowly, "always very
beautiful, and then very poor."

"Yes," nodded Bulstrode.

"She is like the rest of us--one of a fast wild set--a----"

"A gambler?" Bulstrode helped the description.

"She played," acknowledged the young man, "as the rest do--bridge."

"Were you engaged to her, Waring?"

"Yes," he slowly acknowledged, as if each word hurt him.

"And did she believe you guilty?"

"I think," said the other, with an inscrutable expression, "she could
not have done so."

"But she let you go under suspicion?"

"Yes."

"Without a word of good faith, of comfort?"

"Yes."

"Did she know of your embarrassments?"

"Too well."

"You tell me she was poor and--possibly she had embarrassments of her
own?"

"Possibly."

Bulstrode came over to him.

"Was she at the Christmas ball that night?"

The young man rose as well, his eyes on his questioner's; the color had
all left his face--he appeared fascinated--then he shook himself and
unexpectedly laughed.

"No," he said; "oh no."

The older man bowed his head and replied, quite inaptly:

"I understand!"

He took a turn across the room.

The few steps brought him in front of the mantel and the photograph of
the modern lady in her furs and close hat. He stood and met the fire
of her mocking eyes.

"And you