he asked.

"She thought it was Mr. Stoughton Page who brought you to the club.
She never knew, until we were leaving, that you did not know who I
was. Oh, it was all my fault, all my fault, I tell you!" I finished,
as she regarded me in silence. "I let you think everything you did--I
never tried to help you out, after the first, because I couldn't. I
loved you, Margery."

"You took a strange way to prove it," she returned.

Her head was thrown back, her gloved hands pressed together. "Oh! oh!
I hate you! It was contemptible! To take advantage of my trust! To lie
to me! How could you do it?"

I turned away miserable, bitter with myself. And all the while I
worked on the valve, stretching the spring so it would do its work and
replacing the part, she said nothing. Even when I had started the
engine and found it to work smoothly and climbed back in the car, she
was silent. But she drew away from me with a movement which was
unmistakable.

The east had begun to lighten long since, and there was a white streak
along the horizon, streaked with the clearest of amber and rose, as we
came to a crossroad, a mile on, and I got a glimpse of a signpost. If
its information was correct, I had made the turns in the road aright,
and we were within half a mile of our destination. A minute later we
topped a slope, and I marked down a large, stone house which answered
the description I had from the club stableman. It was approached by a
driveway bordered with trees and shrubbery.

I brought the car to a stop at the gates. "I believe this is Mr.
Page's place," I said.

"Yes," she said. It was the first word she had spoken since she knew
who I was.

"And before we go in," I went on, "I thought you might wish to tell me
who I am to be."

"I have nothing to do with that," she answered. "Please take me to the
house."

"But," I insisted, "they will probably ask questions. If they do not,
they will wonder. And I can hardly be a stranger to you--under the
circumstances."

"You will please take me to the house," she repeated.

I started up the driveway, and once or twice it seemed to me she was
about to speak. But she did not, and at the steps I got down and rang
the bell. It was a matter of five minutes before there was response.
Then there came the faint sound of footsteps from within, and the door
was opened. A tall man, in dressing gown, candle in hand, sleep in his
eyes, replied to my inquiry. Yes, this was Mr. Stoughton Page'