e," he said. "I was taken ill directly I arrived. I
never even sent this address to the concierge at Paris. I believe I
was off my head part of the time--'flue plays the deuce with you. But I
remember now. The nurse told me there were some letters which had come
while I was ill. I--didn't bother about them."

While he spoke he was turning over the envelopes, one by one, in a
desultory fashion.

"Yes. This is Lady Arabella's writing." He paused and looked across at
Gillian.

"Will you read it, please?" she said. "And--oh, you ought to sit down!
You don't look very strong yet."

He smiled a little.

"I'm not quite such a crock as I look. But won't you sit down yourself
while I read this letter? Is it of importance?"

"Oh! Please read it!" exclaimed Gillian with sudden nervous impatience.

It seemed to her an eternity while he read the letter. But at last he
looked up from its perusal.

"Well?" she asked under her breath.

Very deliberately he refolded the sheet of notepaper and slipped it back
into its envelope.

"It would have made no difference if I had received it earlier," he said
composedly.

"No difference"

"None. Because, you see, this letter--asking me to go back to Magda--is
written under a misapprehension.

"How? What do you mean?"

"I mean--that Magda has--no further use for me."

Gillian leaned forward.

"You're wrong," she said tersely--"quite wrong."

"No." He shook his head. "I'm not blaming her. Looking back, I'm not
even very much surprised. But still, the fact remains, she has no
further use for me."

"Will you tell me what makes you think that?" With an effort Gillian
forced herself to speak quietly and composedly.

He was silent a moment, staring out of the window at the gay blue sea
beyond, sparkling in the morning sunlight. All at once he swung round on
her, his face wrung with a sudden agony.

"I _know_," he said in a roughened voice. "I know, because I wrote to
her--six months ago. I was hard, I know, brutally hard to her that last
day at Friars' Holm. But--God! I paid for it afterwards! And I wrote
to her--bared my very soul to her. . . . Wrote so that if she had ever
cared she must at least have answered me."

He stopped abruptly, his face working.

"And she didn't answer?"

A wry smile twisted his lips.

"I got my own letter back," he said quietly. "After all, that was an
answer--a conclusive one."

Gillian was thinking rapidly. Six months ago! A momentary fla