for the time being," he said. "I happened to
be counting them when you knocked at my bedroom door. I admit I was
rather taken aback. I didn't want you to see the notes. I didn't see
any reason why you should know anything about my aunt's carelessness.
You must remember you were only a paid employee then. I was close to
the fireplace. I just scrunched them up in my hand and dropped them
behind the fire-screen. Of course I meant to pick them up again
instantly you'd gone. Well, you didn't go. You seemed as if you
wouldn't go. I had to run for the doctor. There was no help for it.
Even then I never dreamt you intended to light the fire in that room.
It never occurred to me for a second.... And I should have thought
anybody lighting a fire couldn't have helped seeing a thing like a
ball of bank-notes on the top of the grate. I should have thought so.
But it seems I was wrong. When I got back of course the whole blooming
thing was up the chimney. Well, there you are! What was I to do? I ask
you that."

He paused. Rachel sobbed.

"Of course," he continued, with savage quietude, "you may say I might
have forced you to listen to me this last week. I might. But why
should I? Why should I beg and pray? If you didn't know the whole
story a week ago, is it my fault? I'm not one to ask twice. I can't go
on my knees and beg to be listened to. Some fellows could perhaps, but
not me!"

Rachel was overwhelmed. The discovery that it was she herself,
Pharisaical and unyielding, who had been immediately responsible
for the disappearance of the bank-notes almost dazed her. And
simultaneously the rehabilitation of her idol drowned her in bliss.
She was so glad to be at fault, so ravished at being able to respect
him again, that the very ecstasy of existing seemed likely to put an
end to her existence. Her physical sensations were such as she might
have experienced if her heart had swiftly sunk away out of her bosom
and left an empty space there that gasped. She glanced up at Louis.

"I'm so sorry!" she breathed.

Louis did not move, nor did his features relax in the slightest.

With one hand raised in appeal, surrender, abandonment and the other
on the arm of her chair, and her work slipping to the floor, she half
rose towards him.

"You can't tell how sorry I am!" she murmured. Her eyes were liquid.
"Louis!"

"And well you may be, if you'll excuse me saying so!" answered Louis
frigidly.

He was confirmed in his illusory but tre