y and confronted him,
interrupting the question which was on his lips. He noticed, with a
quick apprehension, that she was very pale, that the smile which she
had worn for her guests had given place to an expression even more
ominous than her pallor and the trembling of her lips.

"Why have I brought you here?" she echoed. "I don't know, I might
have asked you before them all--perhaps you would have preferred
that! But I won't keep you long. The truth! That is all I want!"

He frowned, with a vicious movement of his lips: then meeting her
gaze, made an awkward effort to seem at ease.

"My dear child!" he said, stepping back and leaning his back against
the door, "what melodrama! The truth! what truth?"

"How often you must have withheld it from me, to ask like that! The
truth about Philip Rainham, and that woman: that is what I ask!"

Lightmark exclaimed petulantly at this:

"Haven't we discussed it all before? Haven't you questioned me
beyond all limits? Haven't you said that you believed me? And what a
time----"

"Yes, I have asked you before. Is it my fault that you have lied? Is
it my fault that you have made it possible for--for someone else to
prove to me, to-night, that you have deceived me? The time is not of
my making. But now, I must have the truth; it is the only
reparation, the last thing I shall ask of you!"

"You must be mad!" he stammered, his self-possession deserting him;
"you don't know--you have no right to speak to me like this. You
don't understand these things; you must let me judge for you----"

"The only thing I understand clearly is that you have blackened
another man's--your friend's--memory. Isn't that enough? Can you
deny that you have allowed him to bear your shame? I know now that
he was innocent; I insist that you shall tell me the rest!"

"The rest!" he repeated impatiently, shifting his attitude. "I won't
submit to this cross-examination! I have explained it all before; I
decline to say any more!"

"Then you cling to your lie?"

"Lie? Pray, don't be so sensational; you talk like the heroine of a
fifth-rate drama! Who has put such a mad idea into your head? Let me
warn you that there are limits to my patience!"

"I will tell you, if you will come with me and deny it to his
face--if you will refute his proofs."

"Proofs! You have no right to ask such a thing! I tell you, I have
acted for the best. Why should you believe the first comer rather
than me?"

"Why? You can as