h?"

"That's the other part of the story. If I had known, I should have left
the matter in her hands. She would have managed it better than I. As it
was, she made my bit of help superfluous."

"I should find it hard to credit that," he said, twisting his fingers
nervously.

"You won't when I tell you."

In the quiet, unaccentuated manner in which she had given her own share
in the action she gave Diane's. Shading her eyes with the hand-screen,
she was able to watch his play of feature, and note how the first forced
smile of bravado faded into an expression of crestfallen gravity.

"You see," she concluded, "they were frantic at Dorothea's failure to
appear. When you arrived they naturally thought it was she; and if Derek
Pruyn hadn't lost his head when he saw you, he wouldn't have tried to
thrust her out of sight as though she were caught in a crime. It was so
like a man to do it; a woman would have had a dozen ways of disarming
your suspicion, while he did the very thing to arouse it. I don't blame
you for thinking what you did--not in the least. I don't even blame you
for telling it, since it would seem to bear out--what you said before. I
should only blame you--"

"Yes, Mademoiselle? You would only blame me--?"

"I should only blame you if--now that you know the truth--you didn't
correct the impression you have given."

"Are you going to begin on that again?" he asked, in a tone of
disappointment.

"I'm not beginning again, because I've never ceased. If I say anything
new on the subject, it is this--that it's time the final word was
spoken."

"I agree with you there; it _is_ time for that word; but you must speak
it."

There was a ring of energy in his voice which caused her to turn from
her contemplation of the fire and look at him. When she did he had taken
on a new air of resolution.

"I think it's time we came to a definite understanding," he went on,
"and that you should see how the matter looks from my point of view. You
speak of doing right, Mademoiselle, as if it were an easy thing. You
don't realize that, for me, it would have to be the last act but one in
life."

In spite of the shock, she ignored his implied confession, going on to
speak in the tone of ordinary conversation.

"The last act but one? I don't understand you."

"Really? I'm surprised at that. You're so good a sportsman that I should
think you'd see that if I do what you ask there will be only one more
thing left for me."