What made you tell him? There must have been some reason, some good
reason, some necessity.'

'No; there was no necessity, no good reason, no reason at all,' Fielding
replied doggedly. 'I told him because--' he stopped abruptly; the reason
seemed too pitiful for him even to relate.

'Well, because?' asked Mrs. Willoughby. There was a note of hardness
in the utterance. Fielding raised his eyes and glanced at her face.
'It comes too late,' he said unconsciously, and he was thinking of
Drake's advice.

'The reason!' she insisted, taking no notice of the sentence. 'The
reason!'

'I told Mallinson at the time when I was always meeting him here.'

Mrs. Willoughby gave a start. 'And because of that?' she cried.

'Yes,' said he. 'I thought the knowledge might give him a fairer,' he
changed the word, 'a better, chance with Clarice.'

'Oh, how mean!' exclaimed Mrs. Willoughby, not so much in anger as in
absolute disappointment. She turned away from him, and stood for a little
looking out of the window. Then she said, 'Good-bye.'

And Fielding took his hat and left the house. He went down to the office,
and was told that Drake wanted to see him.

'Drake!' he exclaimed. He pushed open the door of Drake's private office,
and the latter looked up from his papers.

'You called me a damned liar this morning,' he said, 'and you were
right.'

Fielding dropped into a chair. 'What do you mean?'

'That there's not a word of truth in the _Meteor's_ charges, and I am
prosecuting the editor. Did you post those letters?'

Fielding pulled them out of his pocket and threw them on to the table.
'Thanks,' said Drake, 'that's fortunate.'

Fielding did not inquire into the cause of Drake's change of purpose, and
it was some while before he understood it. For Mrs. Willoughby held no
further discussions with him in the drawing-room at Knightsbridge.

THE END

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