k why!" she interposed.

"Let me beg of you to come back with me to our guests; we shall be
missed--people will talk!"

Eve shrugged her shoulders defiantly, ironically.

"You prevaricate; you won't, you can't be candid! There is only one
other man who can tell me the truth--you make it necessary, I must
go to him."

Lightmark clenched his hand viciously upon the handle of the door.

"I decline to discuss this damnable folly any longer; if you won't
come with me I shall go alone; I shall say that you are ill--really,
I think you must be!"

"Go by all means!" she replied indifferently, "but tell me first,
where can I find Mr. Oswyn?"

He paused, gazing at her blankly.

"Oswyn?"

"Yes. The man who is not afraid to denounce you. If you won't
enlighten me, if you won't clear your--your friend's memory--it may
be at the expense of your own--perhaps he will."

"Oswyn!" he stammered, "Oswyn!"

"His address!" she demanded quickly. "Please understand that for the
future I am independent; I will go to him at once! If you won't give
me his address, if---- Would you prefer that I should ask my brother
for it? That is my alternative!"

Lightmark found something very disconcerting in his wife's steadfast
gaze, in the uncompromising calm, the quiet passion of her
demeanour; his one desire was to put an end to this scene, which
oppressed him as a nightmare, before he should entirely lose all
power of self-control.

He felt himself almost incapable of thought, unable to weigh the
meaning of her words, her threats; the readiness of resource which
served him so deftly in little things had deserted him now, as it
invariably did in the face of a real emergency.

If he could temporize, he might be able to arrive at something more
like a plan of action, to concentrate his efforts in one direction.

He realized that if his wife fulfilled her threat, which was the
more alarming in that it was not an angry one, but had every
appearance of being backed by deliberate intention--if she appealed
to her brother, whose moral principles he estimated more highly than
his tact or worldly wisdom--there appeared to be every prospect of
an aggravated scandal. For if Charles Sylvester (who was
unfortunately among the revellers) declined to furnish his sister
with Oswyn's address, was it not certain that she would apply
elsewhere? And, after all, might not Oswyn adhere to the silence
which he had so long maintained?

He reasoned quickly