g to tell Nick everything--she wanted to
tell him everything--if only she could be sure of reaching a responsive
chord in him. But the scene of the cigars came back to her, and benumbed
her. If only she could make him see that nothing was of any account as
long as they continued to love each other!

His touch fell compassionately on her shoulder. "Poor child--don't," he
said.

Their eyes met, but his expression checked the smile breaking through
her tears. "Don't you see," he continued, "that we've got to have this
thing out?"

She continued to stare at him through a prism of tears. "I can't--while
you stand up like that," she stammered, childishly.

She had cowered down again into a corner of the lounge; but Lansing did
not seat himself at her side. He took a chair facing her, like a caller
on the farther side of a stately tea-tray. "Will that do?" he asked with
a stiff smile, as if to humour her.

"Nothing will do--as long as you're not you!"

"Not me?"

She shook her head wearily. "What's the use? You accept things
theoretically--and then when they happen...."

"What things? What has happened!"

A sudden impatience mastered her. What did he suppose, after all--? "But
you know all about Ellie. We used to talk about her often enough in old
times," she said.

"Ellie and young Davenant?"

"Young Davenant; or the others...."

"Or the others. But what business was it of ours?"

"Ah, that's just what I think!" she cried, springing up with an
explosion of relief. Lansing stood up also, but there was no answering
light in his face.

"We're outside of all that; we've nothing to do with it, have we?" he
pursued.

"Nothing whatever."

"Then what on earth is the meaning of Ellie's gratitude? Gratitude for
what we've done about some letters--and about Vanderlyn?"

"Oh, not you," Susy cried, involuntarily.

"Not I? Then you?" He came close and took her by the wrist. "Answer me.
Have you been mixed up in some dirty business of Ellie's?"

There was a pause. She found it impossible to speak, with that burning
grasp on the wrist where the bangle had been. At length he let her go
and moved away. "Answer," he repeated.

"I've told you it was my business and not yours."

He received this in silence; then he questioned: "You've been sending
letters for her, I suppose? To whom?"

"Oh, why do you torment me? Nelson was not supposed to know that she'd
been away. She left me the letters to post to him once a week.