a baffled
old woman of the world. Now I begin to see. I believe her as you do. The
world and the law will laugh at us because we have none of the accepted
reasons for our belief. But I believe her as you do--absurd as it will
seem to others."

"Yes, it will seem absurd," Coombe said slowly pacing. "But here she
is--and here _we_ are!"

"What do you see before us?" she asked of his deep thought.

"I see a helpless girl in a dark plight. As far as knowledge of how to
defend herself goes, she is as powerless as a child fresh from a
nursery. She lives among people with observing eyes already noting the
change in her piteous face. Her place in your house makes her a centre
of attention. The observation of her beauty and happiness has been
good-natured so far. The observation will continue, but in time its
character will change. I see that before anything else."

"It is the first thing to be considered," she answered.

"The next--" she paused and thought seriously, "is her mother. Perhaps
Mrs. Gareth-Lawless has sharp eyes. She said to you something rather
vulgarly hideous about being glad her daughter was in my house and not
in hers."

"Her last words to Robin were to warn her not to come to her for refuge
'if she got herself into a mess.' She is in what Mrs. Gareth-Lawless
would call 'a mess.'"

"It is what a good many people would call it," the Duchess said. "And
she does not even know that her tragedy would express itself in a mere
vulgar colloquialism with a modern snigger in it. Presently, poor child,
when she awakens a little more she will begin to go about looking like a
little saint. Do you see that--as I do?"

She thought he did and that he was moved by it though he did not say so.

"I am thinking first of her mother. Mrs. Gareth-Lawless must see and
hear nothing. She is not a criminal or malignant creature, but her light
malice is capable of playing flimsily with any atrocity. She has not
brain enough to know that she can be atrocious. Robin can be protected
only if she is shut out of the whole affair. She was simply speaking the
truth when she warned the girl not to come to her in case of need."

"For a little longer I can keep her here," the Duchess said. "As she
looks ill it will not be unnatural that the doctor should advise me to
send her away from London. It is not possible to remember anything long
in the life we live now. She will be forgotten in a week. That part of
it will be simple."

"Yes