“I expect all that you say is true, Christie dear, and that you are ‘letting me off’ yourself, in spite of what you say, lightly enough, if all were known. I’m a strange one, I suppose, and there it is!” He smiled ruefully. “But we’re a fair pair when it comes to that, aren’t we, my dear?” he added. “And all the same, if I hadn’t seen that face⁠—”

All the fire of her indignant arraignment seemed to die out at these words; and as her frail figure sank down on the rose-embroidered sofa, it seemed to be entirely divested of any spirit.

“If that man’s face,” she sighed wearily, “hadn’t appeared to you I should have known tonight⁠—”

He moved a step towards her.

“What’s that, Christie?”