you. I was present, and I heard."

"And you allowed it?"

"What could I do? How could I interfere? Besides, the minister who
demanded that undertaking knew nothing of the relationship between O'Moy
and this missing officer."

"But--but he could have been told."

"That would have made no difference--unless it were to create fresh
difficulties."

She stood there ghostly white against the gloom. A dry sob broke from
her. "Terence did that! Terence did that!" she moaned. And then in a
surge of anger: "I shall never speak to Terence again. I shall not live
with him another day. It was infamous! Infamous!"

"It was not infamous. It was almost noble, almost heroic," he amazed
her. "Listen, Una, and try to understand." He took her arm again and
drew her gently on down that avenue of moonlight-fretted darkness.

"Oh, I understand," she cried bitterly. "I understand perfectly. He has
always been hard on Dick! He has always made mountains out of molehills
where Dick was concerned. He forgets that Dick is young a mere boy. He
judges Dick from the standpoint of his own sober middle age. Why, he's
an old man--a wicked old man!"

Thus her rage, hurling at O'Moy what in the insolence of her youth
seemed the last insult.

"You are very unjust, Una. You are even a little stupid," he said,
deeming the punishment necessary and salutary.

"Stupid! I stupid! I have never been called stupid before."

"But you have undoubtedly deserved to be," he assured her with perfect
calm.

It took her aback by its directness, and for a moment left her without
an answer. Then: "I think you had better leave me," she told him
frostily. "You forget yourself."

"Perhaps I do," he admitted. "That is because I am more concerned to
think of Dick and Terence and yourself. Sit down, Una."

They had reached a little circle by a piece of ornamental water, facing
which a granite-hewn seat had been placed. She sank to it obediently, if
sulkily.

"It may perhaps help you to understand what Terence has done when I tell
you that in his place, loving Dick as I do, I must have pledged myself
precisely as he did or else despised myself for ever. And being pledged,
I must keep my word or go in the same self-contempt." He elaborated his
argument by explaining the full circumstances under which the pledge had
been exacted. "But be in no doubt about it," he concluded. "If Terence
knows of Dick's presence at Monsanto he has no choice. He must deliver
him up t