m and pulled open the
door. There was no need to go farther. Lady O'Moy, white and tearful,
was discovered on the threshold. Sir Terence stood aside, holding the
door for her, his face very grim.

She came in slowly, looking from one to another with her troubled
glance, and finally accepting the chair that Captain Tremayne made haste
to offer her. She had so much to say to each person present that it was
impossible to know where to begin. It remained for Sir Terence to give
her the lead she needed, and this he did so soon as he had closed the
door again. Planted before it like a sentry, he looked at her between
anger and suspicion.

"How much did you overhear?" he asked her.

"All that you said about Dick," she answered without hesitation.

"Then you stood listening?"

"Of course. I wanted to know what you were saying."

"There are other ways of ascertaining that without stooping to
keyholes," said her husband.

"I didn't stoop," she said, taking him literally. "I could hear what
was said without that--especially what you said, Terence. You will raise
your voice so on the slightest provocation."

"And the provocation in this instance was, of course, of the slightest.
Since you have heard Captain Tremayne's story of course you'll have no
difficulty in confirming it."

"If you still can doubt, O'Moy," said Tremayne, "it must be because you
wish to doubt; because you are afraid to face the truth now that it has
been placed before you. I think, Una, it will spare a deal of trouble,
and save your husband from a great many expressions that he may
afterwards regret, if you go and fetch Dick. God knows, Terence has
enough to overwhelm him already."

At the suggestion of producing Dick, O'Moy's anger, which had begun to
simmer again, was stilled. He looked at his wife almost in alarm, and
she met his look with one of utter blankness.

"I can't," she said plaintively. "Dick's gone."

"Gone?" cried Tremayne.

"Gone?" said O'Moy, and then he began to laugh. "Are you quite sure that
he was ever here?"

"But--" She was a little bewildered, and a frown puckered her perfect
brow. "Hasn't Ned told you, then?"

"Oh, Ned has told me. Ned has told!" His face was terrible.

"And don't you believe him? Don't you believe me?" She was more
plaintive than ever. It was almost as if she called heaven to witness
what manner of husband she was forced to endure. "Then you had better
call Mullins and ask him. He saw Dick leave."