"To be made a fool of by your rushing away
from my house in my absence--to have the servants gossiping--not to
know what has become of you--"

"I left a note for you," she interrupted. "And you didn't believe what
I told you in it."

"No," he acknowledged. "I didn't. I was afraid . . . Good God, Nan!"
he broke out with sudden passion. "Haven't you any idea of what I've
been through this last forty-eight hours? . . . It's been hell!"

She looked at him as though amazed.

"I don't understand," she said impatiently. "Please explain."

"Explain? Can't you understand?" His face darkened. "You said you
couldn't marry me--you asked me to release you! And then--after
that!--I come home to find you gone--gone with no word of explanation,
and the whole household buzzing with the story that you've run away! I
waited for a letter from you, and none came. Then I wired--to
safeguard you I wired from Exeter. No answer! What was I to
think? . . . What _could_ I think but that you'd gone? Gone to some
other man!"

"Do you suppose if I'd left you for someone else I should have been
afraid to tell you? That I should have written an idiotic note like
that? . . . How dared you wire to Penelope? It was abominable of you!"

"Why didn't she reply? I thought they must be away--"

"That clinched matters in your mind, I suppose?" she said
contemptuously. "But it's quite simple. Penelope didn't wire because
I wouldn't let her."

He was silent. It was quite true that since Nan's disappearance from
Trenby Hall he had been through untold agony of mind. The possibility
that she might have left him altogether in a wild fit of temper had not
seemed to him at all outside the bounds of probability. And it was
equally true that when another day had elapsed without bringing further
news of her, he had become a prey to the increasing atmosphere of
suspicion which, thanks to the gossip that always gathers in the
servants' hall, had even spread to the village.

Nor had either his mother or cousin made the least attempt to stem his
rising anger. Far from it. Lady Gertrude had expressed her opinion
with a conciseness that was entirely characteristic.

"You made an unwise choice, my son. Nan has no sense of her future
position as your wife."

Isobel had been less blunt in her methods, but a corrosive acid had
underlain her gentle speech.

"I can't understand it, Roger. She--she was fond of you, wasn't she?
Oh"--with