orough Square and whom he had helped bring in to Mrs. Mundy.

CHAPTER IX

Bettina, who had opened the door for Selwyn on his last visit, and
who had informed me the next day that she had "shivered with
trembles" because of his great difference to the men in Scarborough
Square, for the second time looked up at me.

"What is he doing down here?" Her finger pointed in the direction of
the man and woman just ahead of us. "What's he talking to that girl
for?"

I did not answer her at once. Amazement and unbelief were making my
heart hot, and a flood of color burned my face. Of all men on earth,
Selwyn was the last to find in this part of the town at this time of
the evening, and as he bent his head to speak to the girl I noticed
he was talking earnestly and using his hands in expressive gestures
as he talked. Starting forward, I took a few steps and then stopped,
sharply.

"I don't know what he is doing down here. Certainly he is at liberty
to come here just as we come."

Bettina's eyes strained in the darkness. "I can't see her face. If
we cross over we can catch up with them by the time they reach the
corner where we could see her in the light." The grip of my hand on
her arm made her stop. "I mean--"

"You don't know what you mean."

It was silly, childish, unreasonable, that I should speak sharply to
Bettina, and equally unreasonable that fear and horror and sickening
suspicion should possess me, but possessed I was by sensations
hitherto unexperienced, and for a moment the gaslight from the lamp
on the opposite street corner wavered and circled in a confusing,
bewildering way. Sudden revelations, sudden realizations, were
unsteadying me. Was Selwyn really some one I did not know? Was his
life less single than I believed it? Hateful, ugly, disloyal
questions surged tumultuously for a half-minute; then reason
returned, and shame that I should insult him with doubt, cooled the
flame in my face.

"It's too late to go to the Binkers. We'd better go home. We'll go
there some other afternoon."

I turned from Bettina's amazed eyes. My tone of voice a moment
before was still perplexing her, and unblinkingly she was searching
my face. Hitherto her directness, her frankness of speech and use of
words, had amused me, and I had permitted, perhaps, too great an
exercise of her gift of comment; but applied personally it was a
different matter.

"We'll go to the corner and turn there," I said. "