just
because--" A sudden inspiration came to her. Her voice failed her, and
she hid her face in her pocket handkerchief.

Riatt leant back in his chair and looked at her, looked at least at the
back of her long neck, and the twist of her golden hair and the
occasional heave of her shoulders.

The strange and the humiliating thing was that she had just as much
effect upon him when he quite obviously knew that she was insincere.

"Why," he said gently, "are you crying? Or perhaps I ought to say, why
are you pretending to cry?"

She paid no attention to the latter part of his question.

"You're so unkind," she said, careful not to overdo a sob. "You don't
seem to understand what a terrible situation this is for me."

"In what way is it terrible?"

"Don't you know that a story like this clings to a girl as long as she
lives? That among the people I know there will always be gossip--"

"You're not serious?"

She nodded, still behind her handkerchief, "Yes, I am. This will be
something I shall have to live down, as much as you would if you had
robbed a bank."

She now raised her head, and wiping her eyes hard enough to make them a
little red, she glanced at him.

Really she thought it would save a great deal of time and trouble, if he
could just see the thing clearly and ask her to marry him now.

But apparently his mind did not work so quickly.

"Who will repeat it?" he said. "Not the Usshers--"

"Nancy Almar won't let it pass. She'll have found the evening dull
without you, and she'll feel she has a right to compensation. And that
worm, Wickham; it will be his favorite anecdote for the rest of his life.
I was horrible to him last night at dinner."

"Sorry you were?"

"Not a bit. I'd do it again, but I may as well face the fact that he
won't be eager to conceal his own social triumphs for the sake of my good
name. Can't you hear him, 'Curious thing happened the other day--at my
friends the Usshers'. Know them? A lovely country place--'--"

"I'm awfully sorry," he said. "What a bore! Is there anything I
could do--"

"Well, there _is_ one thing."

He looked up quickly. If ever terror flashed in a man's eyes, she saw it
then in his. Her heart sank, but her mind worked none the less well.

"It's this," she went on smoothly. "There's a lodge, a sort of
tool-house, only about half a mile down the road. Couldn't you take a
lantern, couldn't you possibly spend the night there?"

"It isn't by any chance,"