gly.
How astonishing that _she_ should thank Paul Van Vreck, the monster of
wickedness and secrecy she had pictured, for "sparing" her husband--her
husband whom _he_ called loyal, true, and honest; whom she had called in
her heart a thief!

"Do sit down," she hurried on, hypnotized. "Forgive my not asking you.
I----"

"I understand," he soothed her. "I've taken advantage of you--sprung
a surprise, as Don would say, and then turned on the tortures of the
Inquisition. Aren't _you_ going to sit? I can't, you know, if you don't."

"I thought you might like something to eat," the girl stammered. "I could
call our cook----"

"No, thank you," replied Van Vreck. "I'm peculiar in more ways than one.
I never eat at night. I live mostly on milk, water, fruit, and nuts.
That's why I feel forty at seventy-two. I give out that I'm frail--an
invalid--that I spend much time in nursing homes. This is my joke on a
public which has no business to be curious about my habits. While it
thinks I'm recuperating in a nursing home I--but no matter! That won't
interest you."

When she had obediently sat down, her knees trembling a little, Van Vreck
drew up a chair for himself, and, resting his arms on the table, leaned
across it gazing at the girl with a queer, humorous benevolence.

"How soon do you think your husband will come?" he asked, abruptly.

"I don't know," Annesley replied. "He told our Chinese boy he'd be early.
I suppose the sandstorm has delayed him."

"No doubt.... And you're worried?"

"No-o," she answered, looking sidewise at Van Vreck, her face half turned
from him. "I don't think that I'm worried."

"May I talk to you frankly till Don does come?" the old man asked.

"Certainly."

"I'll take you at your word!... Mrs. Donaldson, when your husband called
on me a year ago last spring, in New York, he said nothing about you. I
knew he'd married an English girl of good connections (isn't that what
you say on your side?), and why he thought it would be wise to marry. But
when he informed me that our association was to be ended, that nothing
would induce him to continue it, I read between the lines. I'm sharp at
that! I knew as well as if he'd told me that he'd fallen in love with the
girl, that she'd unexpectedly become the important factor in his life,
and that--she'd found out a secret she'd never been meant to find out:
_his_ secret, and maybe mine.

"I realized by his face--the look in the eyes, the tone of the voi