ned look had
gone from her face. She took off her hat and he laid it upon the table.

"You are very good, very kind indeed," she murmured. "And yet not so
kind as I would like to be."

He came and stood by her side. She was eating one of the sandwiches and
had already tasted the wine. Somehow, he knew quite well that she had had
no dinner.

"I want you to understand," he began, "that you are free to tell me what
has happened to-night or not--just as you please. Don't feel obliged to
explain, I'll be quite frank, I am a curious person as regards you. I
want to know--everything. I should like to know how it was that you were
unable to come to dinner or join us at the theatre to-night. I should
like to know what has brought you out of your house to an hotel at
midnight--but don't tell me unless you want to."

"I do want to," she assured him. "I want to tell you everything. I
think--somehow I almost feel that you have the right to know."

"Cultivate that feeling," he begged her. "I like it."

She smiled, a wan little smile that passed very soon. Her face grew sad
again. She was thinking.

"I dare say you can guess," she began presently, "something of what my
daily life is like when my husband is in town. It is little less than
torture, especially since he became mixed up with Mr. Phipps, that
horrible person Martin, and their friends."

"Abominable!" Wingate muttered.

"He is all the while trying to induce me to receive their women friends,"
she continued. "I need not tell you that I have refused, as I always
should refuse."

"Naturally!"

"To-night, however," she went on, "he has surpassed himself. First of all
he telephoned to say that he was bringing home friends for dinner, and if
I had any other engagement he requested me to cancel it. As you know, I
did so. Notwithstanding his message, he did not arrive at the house until
eleven o'clock, barely an hour ago."

"And kept you waiting all that time?"

"That is nothing. Let me explain something before I conclude. Before the
war I had an Austrian maid, a woman whom I turned out of the house, and
whom my husband at that time did not dare to ask me to reinstate. He had
not then spent quite the whole of my fortune. Besides an undoubted
intrigue with my husband, I heard afterwards that she only escaped
imprisonment as a spy by leaving the country hurriedly just before war
was declared. Tonight, my husband, having kept me waiting three hours
while he dined with