oices was
quite unmistakable. All talked and laughed as they danced, and the
hubbub was considerable.

Into it Olga came stealing back, and paused nervously in the doorway to
look on. Daisy, dressed as a water-nymph, waved her a gay greeting over
her husband's shoulder. Olga smiled and waved back, striving to smother
away out of sight the sick fear at her heart.

Someone touched her shoulder, and she started round almost with a cry.

Noel bent to her. "Sorry I made you jump. Look here! There's no one in
the ante-room. Come and sit out with me!"

He offered his arm, and she took it thankfully without a word. They went
away together.

The ante-room was dimly lighted, and comparatively quiet, though the
music and laughter and swish of dancing feet were fully audible there.
Noel found her a comfortable chair, and seated himself upon the arm
thereof.

He did not speak at once, but after a little, as Olga sat in silence, he
turned and looked down at her.

She raised her eyes at once and smiled. "You must think me very
foolish," she said.

"No, I don't," he rejoined bluntly. "That brute is enough to scare any
woman. You hate him, don't you?"

There was insistence in his tone, insistence mingled with a touch of
anxiety. But Olga did not answer him.

"Don't let us talk about him!" she said, with a shiver she could not
repress.

Noel's mouth hardened a little. "I'm very sorry," he said. "But we
must. He's been circulating a lot of lies about--Max." He paused an
instant, looking straight down at her. "Max is a good chap, you know,"
he said. "It's up to me to defend him."

Olga's face quivered, but she kept her eyes lifted. "You can't," she
said, her voice very low.

"Can't I, though?" Hotly he threw back the words. "You don't mean to say
you believe it?"

"I know it is true," she said.

"My dear Olga,--" he began.

But she checked him, her hand upon his arm. "Noel," she said, "truly I
can't talk about this. But that story is--true, in part at least. Max
admitted it--himself--to me."

"Impossible!" ejaculated Noel.

Her fingers closed over his sleeve; her hold was beseeching. "I can't
argue with you, Noel," she said. "But I know it is true. You see, I was
there."

He stared at her in stupefaction. "Olga, I can't believe it!"

"It is true," she said again.

"But--" Noel began to waver in spite of himself--"if you were there, you
must have known all along!"

Her brows drew into the old lines of perplex