u don't want
other people to see--something you're ashamed of!--or you wouldn't be
searching for it at this time of night." She raised her eyes, still with
the same strange yet flaming quiet, from the littered floor to his face.
Then suddenly glancing again at the scattered papers--"That's your
hand-writing!--they're your letters! letters to Mrs. Fairmile!"

"Well, and what do you make of that?" cried Roger, half wroth, half
inclined to laugh. "If you want to know, they are the letters I wrote to
Chloe Fairmile; and I, like a careless beast, never destroyed them, and
they were stuffed away here. I have long meant to get at them and burn
them, and as you turned me out to-night----"

"What is that letter in your hand?" exclaimed Daphne, interrupting him.

"Oh, that has nothing to do with you--or me----" he said, hastily making
a movement to put it in his coat pocket. But in a second, Daphne, with a
cry, had thrown herself upon him, to his intense amazement, wrestling
with him, in a wild excitement. And as she did so, a thin woman, with
frightened eyes, in a nurse's dress, came quickly into the room, as
though Daphne's cry had signalled to her. She was behind Roger, and he
was not aware of her approach.

"Daphne, don't be such a little fool!" he said indignantly, holding her
off with one hand, determined not to give her the letter.

Then, all in a moment--without, as it seemed to him, any but the mildest
defensive action on his part--Daphne stumbled and fell.

"Daphne!--I say!----"

He was stooping over her in great distress to lift her up, when he felt
himself vehemently put aside by a woman's hand.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, sir! Let me go to her."

He turned in bewilderment. "Miss Farmer! What on earth are you doing
here?"

But in his astonishment he had given way to her, and he fell back pale
and frowning, while, without replying, she lifted Daphne--who had a cut
on her forehead and was half fainting--from the ground.

"Don't come near her, sir!" said the nurse, again warding him off. "You
have done quite enough. Let me attend to her."

"You imagine that was my doing?" said Roger grimly. "Let me assure you
it was nothing of the kind. And pray, were you listening at the door?"

Miss Farmer vouchsafed no reply. She was half leading, half supporting
Daphne, who leant against her. As they neared the door, Roger, who had
been standing dumb again, started forward.

"Let me take her," he said stern