hing I
liked with him," said Lord Holme. "Gad! Talk of boxin'--"

He looked at his bandaged hand and laughed again triumphantly. Then,
suddenly, a sense of other things than his physical strength seemed to
return upon him. His face changed, grew lowering, and he thrust forward
his under jaw, opening his mouth to speak. Lady Holme did not give him
time.

"Yes, I sent Leo Ulford the latch-key," she said. "You needn't ask. I
sent it, and told him to come to-night. D'you know why?"

Lord Holme's face grew scarlet.

"Because you're a--"

She stopped him before he could say the irrevocable word.

"Because I mean to have the same liberty as the man I've married,"
she said. "I asked Leo Ulford here, and I intended you should find him
here."

"You didn't. You thought I wasn't comin' home."

"Why should I have thought such a thing?" she said, swiftly, sharply.

Her voice had an edge to it.

"You meant not to come home, then?"

She read his stupidity at a glance, the guilty mind that had blundered,
thinking its intention known when it was not known. He began to deny it,
but she stopped him. At this moment, and exactly when she ought surely
to have been crushed by the weight of Fritz's fury, she dominated him.
Afterwards she wondered at herself, but not now.

"You meant not to come home?"

For once Lord Holme showed a certain adroitness. Instead of replying to
his wife he retorted:

"You meant me to find Ulford here! That's a good 'un! Why, you tried all
you knew to keep him out."

"Yes."

"Well, then?"

"I wanted--but you'd never understand."

"He does," said Lord Holme.

He laughed again, got up and walked about the room, fingering his
bandages. Then suddenly, he turned on Lady Holme and said savagely:

"And you do."

"I?"

"Yes, you. There's lots of fellers that would--"

"Stop!" said Lady Holme, in a voice of sharp decision.

She got up too. She felt that she could not say what she meant to say
sitting down.

"Fritz," she added, "you're a fool. You may be worse. I believe you
are. But one thing's certain--you're a fool. Even in wickedness you're a
blunderer."

"And what are you?" he said.

"I!" she answered, coming a step nearer. "I'm not wicked."

A sudden, strange desire came to her, a desire--as she had slangily
expressed it to Robin Pierce--to "trot out" the white angel whom she had
for so long ignored or even brow-beaten. Was the white angel there? Some
there were who believed so. Ro