n Tite Street, Brigit recalled
the occasion of her other visit there and shuddered. Poor Carron. Could
it have been partly her fault?

And that was her only tribute to his memory. Essentially selfish though
the girl was, she was no hypocrite, and it did not occur to her now to
make excuses for the man simply because he was dead.

But it had been just here at the turning of the dusty stairs that he had
waylaid her on her way down after her first love scene with Joyselle,
and she could not pass without recalling it.

Then she had been gloriously happy, feeling, because she and Victor
loved each other, that the world was theirs; now she came a
broken-willed, frightened woman, to plead with the man who had put her
out of his life, to take her back. She would tell him that no matter
what happened, she would never marry Theo, and--then, when he realised
that she meant this, she would beg him to take her back.

And remembering the last days she trembled.

She knocked at his door, and a short, familiar bark answered the sound.
Papillon. But-ter-fly.

Joyselle opened the door, which had been locked, and when he saw her,
his face, already sombre, darkened ominously.

"Brigitte--what do you want?" he asked, not offering to let her in.
Behind him, on a table, she saw his violin-case--unopened, and her heart
gave a glad hope. He had not been working. He had been, she hoped,
unable to work.

"May I come in, Victor?" she asked.

Still he did not move. "Why?" he asked uncompromisingly.

"Because I have things to tell you. Don't be afraid. I am not going to
make a scene----"

He drew aside, and she went in and closed the door. Papillon sprang at
her with delight, and she laughed sadly.

"_He_ is glad to see me," she said; "aren't you, Yellow Dog?"

Joyselle shrugged his shoulders and sitting down on the sofa lit a
cigarette. "Well?" he asked after a pause.

Brigit sat down by him and took off her gloves.

"Victor--why have things--been as they have been of late?"

"You know why."

"Because the father in you is stronger than the lover?"

"I have never been your lover," he retorted harshly, hurling the words
at her as if they had been an accusation.

She winced. "I am speaking English. Well--was it your loyalty to Theo
that--that changed you?"

"I have been loyal, have I not? _Juste ciel!_" Rising, he walked about
the great room, his hands clasped behind him. "My conduct was
magnificent, was it not? Don't quibble