im open-mouthed.

'You?--you came to see me?'

He advanced, head foremost, hand outstretched.

'I have something important to say to you.' Welby took no notice of
the hand. 'Shall we be undisturbed?'

'I imagine so!' said Fenwick, fiercely retreating; 'but, as you see, I
am extremely busy!' He pointed to the room and its contents.

'I am sorry to interrupt you'--Welby's voice was carefully
controlled--'but I think you will admit that I had good reason to come
and find you.' He looked round to see that the door was shut, then
advanced a step nearer. 'You are, I think, acquainted with that lady?'

He handed Fenwick a card. Fenwick took it to the light. On it was
lithographed 'Miss Isabel Morrison,' and a written address, 'Corso de
Madrid, Buenos Ayres,' had been lightly scratched out in one corner.

Fenwick put down the card.

'Well,' he said, sharply--'and if I am--what then?'

Welby began to speak--paused--and cleared his throat. He was standing,
with one hand lightly resting on the table, his eyes fixed on Fenwick.
There was a moment of shock, of mutual defiance.

'This lady seems to have observed the movements of our party here,'
said Welby, commanding himself. 'She followed my wife and me to-day,
after we met you in the Park. She spoke to us. She gave us the
astonishing news that you were a married man--that your wife--'

Fenwick rushed forward and gripped the speaker's arm.

'My God! Tell me!--is she alive?'

His eyes starting out of his head--his crimson face--his anguish,
seemed to affect the other with indescribable repulsion.

Welby wrenched himself free.

'That was what Miss Morrison wished to ask _you_. She says that when
you and she last met you were not on very good terms; she shrank,
therefore, from addressing you. But she had a respect for your
wife--she wished to know what had become of her--and her curiosity
impelled her to speak to us. She seems to have been in Buenos Ayres
for many years. This year she returned--as governess--with the family
of a French engineer, who have taken an apartment in Versailles. She
first saw you in the street nearly a month ago.'

Fenwick had dropped into a chair, his face in his hands. As Welby
ceased speaking, he looked up.

'And she said nothing about my wife's where-abouts?'

'Nothing. She knows nothing.'

'Nor of why she left me?'

Welby hesitated.

'Miss Morrison seems to have her own ideas as to that.'

'Where is she?' Fenwick rose hurriedl