His methods would be definite enough. He had not watched his wife and
Ffolliott for weeks to no end. He had known what he was dealing with. He
had put other people upon the track and they would testify for him. He
poured forth unspeakable statements and intimations, going, as usual,
further than he had known he should go when he began. Under the spur of
excitement his imagination served him well. At last he paused.

"Well," he put it to her, "what have you to say?"

"I?" with the remote intent curiosity growing in her eyes. "I have
nothing to say. I am leaving you to say things."

"You will, of course, try to deny----" he insisted.

"No, I shall not. Why should I?"

"You may assume your air of magnificence, but I am dealing with
uncomfortable factors." He stopped in spite of himself, and then burst
forth in a new order of rage. "You are trying some confounded experiment
on me. What is it?"

She rose from her chair to go out of the room, and stood a moment
holding her book half open in her hand.

"Yes. I suppose it might be called an experiment," was her answer.
"Perhaps it was a mistake. I wanted to make quite sure of something."

"Of what?"

"I did not want to leave anything undone. I did not want to believe that
any man could exist who had not one touch of decent feeling to redeem
him. It did not seem human."

White dints showed themselves about his nostrils.

"Well, you have found one," he cried. "You have a lashing tongue, by
God, when you choose to let it go. But I could teach you a good many
things, my girl. And before I have done you will have learned most of
them."

But though he threw himself into a chair and laughed aloud as she left
him, he knew that his arrogance and bullying were proving poor weapons,
though they had done him good service all his life. And he knew, too,
that it was mere simple truth that, as a result of the intellectual,
ethical vagaries he scathingly derided--she had actually been giving him
a sort of chance to retrieve himself, and that if he had been another
sort of man he might have taken it.

CHAPTER XLIV

A FOOTSTEP

It was cold enough for fires in halls and bedrooms, and Lady Anstruthers
often sat over hers and watched the glowing bed of coals with a fixed
thoughtfulness of look. She was so sitting when her sister went to
her room to talk to her, and she looked up questioningly when the door
closed and Betty came towards her.

"You have come to tell me some