position in the world,
your world?"

I was silent, moodily, obstinately silent. She had hit the blot, and
could put but one interpretation upon it. I saw she guessed I knew
something. Not how much, perhaps, but something to her discredit. She
still was not satisfied; she would penetrate my reserve, overcome my
reticence, have it out of me willy nilly, whether I would or no.

"You cannot surely refuse me? I have my reasons for desiring to know
the very worst."

"Why drive me to that?" I schooled myself to seem hard and
uncompromising. I felt I was weakening under the subtle charm of her
presence, and the pretty pleading of her violet eyes; but I was still
resolute not to give way.

"If you will only tell me why you think such evil I may be able to
justify myself, or at least explain away appearances that are against
me."

"You admit there are such appearances? Remember, I never said so."

"Then on what do you condemn me? You do condemn me, I am certain of
it," she insisted, seeing my gesture of negation. "Are you treating
me fairly, chivalrously, as a gentleman and a man of honour should?
How can you reconcile it to your conscience?"

"Some people talk very lightly of conscience, or use it when it is an
empty meaningless word," I said severely.

"You imply that I have no conscience, or that I should feel the
qualms, the prickings of conscience?"

"After what you've done, yes," I blurted out.

"What have I done? What do you know of it, or what led me to do it?
How dare you judge me without knowing the facts, without a shadow of
proof?" She sprang to her feet and passed to the door, where she
turned, as it were, at bay.

"I have the very best proof, from your own lips. I heard you and your
maid talking together at Calais."

"A listener, Colonel Annesley? Faugh!"

"It was forced on me. You stood under my window there." I defended
myself indignantly. "I wish to heaven I had never heard. I did not
want to know; your secrets are your own affair."

"And my actions, I presume?" she put in with superb indifference.

"And their consequences, madam," but the shot failed rather of effect.
She merely smiled and shook her head recklessly, contemptuously. Was
she so old a hand, so hardened in crime, that the fears of detection,
arrest, reprisals, the law and its penalties had no effect upon her?
Undoubtedly at Calais she was afraid; some misgiving, some haunting
terror possessed her. Now, when standing before me fu