o a well-known and
extremely impatient lady in London to account for his continued absence
from her house. "So that is it!" said the lady, reading, and was at
least in the enviable position of one who had confirmatory facts to
impart....

And so quite suddenly the masks were off our situation and we were open
to an impertinent world. For some days I did not realize what had
happened, and lived in hope that Philip had been willing and able to
cover his lapse. I went about with my preoccupation still, as I
imagined, concealed, and with an increasing number of typed letters from
my private enquiry agent in my pocket containing inaccurate and
worthless information about the movements of Justin, which appeared to
have been culled for the most part from a communicative young policeman
stationed at the corner nearest to the Justins' house, or expanded from
_Who's Who_ and other kindred works of reference. The second letter, I
remember, gave some particulars about the financial position of the
younger men, and added that Justin's credit with the west-end tradesmen
was "limitless," points upon which I had no sort of curiosity
whatever....

I suppose a couple of hundred people in London knew before I did that
Lady Mary Justin had been carried off to Ireland and practically
imprisoned there by her husband because I was her lover. The thing
reached me at last through little Fred Riddling, who came to my rooms in
the morning while I was sitting over my breakfast. "Stratton!" said he,
"what is all this story of your shaking Justin by the collar, and
threatening to kill him if he didn't give up his wife to you? And why do
you want to fight a duel with Maxton? What's it all about? Fire-eater
you must be! I stood up for you as well as I could, but I heard you
abused for a solid hour last night, and there was a chap there simply
squirting out facts and dates and names. Got it all.... What have you
been up to?"

He stood on my hearthrug with an air of having called for an explanation
to which he was entitled, and he very nearly got one. But I just had
some scraps of reserve left, and they saved me. "Tell me first," I said,
delaying myself with the lighting of a cigarette, "the particulars ...
as you heard them."

Riddling embarked upon a descriptive sketch, and I got a minute or so to
think.

"Go on," I said with a note of irony, when he paused. "Go on. Tell me
some more. Where did you say they have taken her; let us have it right.