glanced at him involuntarily, and their
looks crossed.

'A strange story, you said. Suppose you tell it me. It will while away
some of my time.'

Fielding lit a cigarette and related the story. At the end of it
Mallinson lay back on the pillows, staring at the ceiling. Once or twice
Fielding spoke to him, but he did not hear. He was not thinking: the
knowledge that the secret to be discovered was his to use was as a sense
in him. He felt it pulsing through his veins and throbbing at his heart.
Mrs. Willoughby was forgotten. It had been after all but a fictitious
fancy which he had conceived for her, a fancy fostered in the main as
balm for his self-respect after his refusal by Clarice.

As soon as he was sufficiently recovered he called upon Miss Le Mesurier,
confident that his hour and opportunity had come. Drake, however, had
reported to Clarice on the condition of Mallinson, and her sympathy had
in consequence to a great extent evaporated. Bronchitis was not of the
ailments which spring from a broken heart, and she was inclined to hold
it as a grievance against him that she had been so wastefully touched
with pity. Her sympathy disappeared altogether when with little
circumlocution he broached the subject of the Boruwimi expedition, and
dropped a mention of Mrs. Willoughby's relative. There was something at
the back of it, he hinted.

Clarice wondered whence he had got his information, but made no effort to
check him. She stood looking out of the window while he retold her the
story of Gorley's death. It became more unreal to her than ever; for
while his account was correctly given, as Mrs. Willoughby had given it to
Fielding, it lacked the uncompromising details which Drake himself had
furnished. Her recollection of these details made the man who had given
them stand out in her thoughts.

'It was a pitiful affair,' Mallinson concluded, 'but I thought you
ought to know.'

Clarice drew a finger down the frame of glass in front of her.

'Mr. Drake thought so too,' she said quietly.

'Drake!' exclaimed Mallinson, utterly bewildered. 'Drake! The man
wouldn't be such a--'

'He was though.'

'Do you mean that he confessed to it?'

'Confess?' she said, turning towards him. 'That is hardly the word. He
told me of his own accord the moment he knew I had been engaged to--to--'
She broke off at the name, and continued, 'and he spared himself in the
telling far less than you have spared him.'

She spoke with a ge