t
proof that whoever had visited his room had come as a listener and a
spy and not as a thief.

It occurred to Philip now that he had found his door unlatched and
slightly ajar when he entered. That the eavesdropper had seen them in
the hall and had possibly overheard a part of their conversation he was
quite certain from the fact that the window had been left open in a
hurried flight.

For some time the impulse was strong in him to acquaint both Josephine
and her father with what had happened, and with Jean Croisset's
apparent treachery. He did not need to ask himself if it was the
half-breed who had stolen into his room. He was as certain of that as
he was of the identity of the face he had seen at the window some time
before. And yet something held him from communicating these events of
the night to the master of Adare House and the girl. He was becoming
more and more convinced that there existed an unaccountable and
mysterious undercurrent of tragic possibilities at Adare House of which
Josephine was almost ignorant, and her father entirely so. Josephine's
motherhood and the secret she was guarding were not the only things
that were clouding his mental horizon now. There was something else.
And he believed that Jean was the key to the situation.

He felt a clammy chill creep over him as he asked himself how closely
Jean Jacques Croisset himself was associated with the girl he loved. It
was a thought that almost made him curse himself for giving it birth.
And yet it clung to him like a grim and haunting spectre that he would
have crushed if he could. Josephine's confession of motherhood had not
made him love her less. In those terrible moments when she had bared
her soul to him, his own soul had suffered none of the revulsion with
which he might have sympathized in others. It was as if she had fallen
at his feet, fluttering in the agony of a terrible wound, a thing as
pure as the heavens, hurt for him to cherish in his greater
strength--such was his love. And the thought that Jean loved her, and
that a jealousy darker than night was burning all that was human out of
his breast, was a possibility which he found unpleasant to admit to
himself.

So deeply was he absorbed in these thoughts that he forgot any
immediate danger that might be threatening himself. He passed and
repassed the window, smoking his pipe, and fighting with himself to hit
upon some other tangible reason for Jean's unexpected change of heart.
H