st. What had
disturbed his night's rest had been his fear lest he should forget to
feed Baby. And in the morning there had been too many things to do,
there had been Dossie and Baby. And then Winny again.

And now they were all gone. There was silence and a clear space to think
in. His brain too was clear and clean. The clouds of cotton wool had
been dispersed in his movements to and fro.

As an aid to thinking he brought out of his breast pocket Violet's
letter. He spread it on the table in the back sitting-room and sat down
to it, seriously, as to a document that he would have to master, a thing
that would yield its secret only under the closest examination. He was
aware that he had not by any means taken it all in last night.

That she had gone off with Leonard Mercier, _that_ he had indeed
grasped, _that_ he knew. But beyond that the letter gave him no solid
practical information. It did not and it was not meant to give him any
clue. In going off Violet had disappeared and had meant to disappear. He
gathered from it that she had been possessed by one thought and by one
fear, that he would go after her and bring her back.

"What on earth," he said to himself, "should I go after her for?"

She made that clear to him as he read on. Her idea was that he would go
after her, not so much to bring her back as to do something to Mercier,
to inflict punishment on him, to hurt Mercier and hurt him badly. That
was what Violet was afraid of; that was why she tried to shield Mercier,
to excuse him, to take the whole blame on herself. And, evidently, that
was what Mercier was afraid of too. That was why he had bolted with her
to Paris. They must have had that in their minds, they must have planned
it months before. He must have been trying for the post he'd got there.
Ransome could see further, with a fierce shrewdness, that it was
Mercier's "funk" and not his loyalty that accounted for his "holding
off." "He held off because I was his friend, did he? He held off to save
his own skin, the swine!"

And now she drew him up. What was all this about Winny Dymond? He must
have missed it last night. "She was always fond of you. It was a lie
what I told you about her not being. I said it because I was mad on you.
I knew you'd have married her if I'd let you alone."

She was cool, the way she showed herself up. That's what she'd done,
had she? Lied, so that he might think Winny didn't care for him? Lied,
so that he mightn't marry h