Taking up a hand-lamp, Dinah passed into a neighbouring chamber. When she returned, in three or four minutes’ time, there was a pallor about her lips, a threatening of tears (the like of which during the past fifteen months had been happily absent) in her voice. ‘Baby has moved--has she not! I thought I heard her from my room.’ ‘The infant sneezed,’ answered Gaston Arbuthnot with gravity. ‘Much to my terror. Sneezing might suggest waking. And to be alone with a waking baby recalls Dr. Johnson and the tower. Bring your wonderful packet here’--she had paused for a moment beside the child’s cradle--‘and let us have the scene out.’ ‘We will never have a scene again while we live.’ Poor Dinah sank into her former kneeling position; she rested her cheek against her husband’s coat-sleeve. ‘Indeed, I think it might be fairer to you, more generous to Linda Thorne, to close the matter--thus.’ She held the packet in the direction of the flames. With a quick movement Gaston Arbuthnot’s hand stayed her. He drew the contents forth from the envelope. He read Marjorie Bartrand’s ‘one word.’ Then he glanced at the blackened flower-stalks, at the bit of tarnished Spanish ribbon. ‘And could you believe--in the full possession of your reason, wife--that this was meant for me?’ Dinah’s head drooped lower. She coloured violently. ‘Could you believe that Linda Thorne, a woman who has travelled over half the habitable globe alone, picking up experience everywhere--Linda, a woman of tact, a woman of the world--would commit herself to sentiment of doubtful application, set down in black and white?’ ‘I never stopped to reason--the heart within me was too sore. I knew Linda Thorne had called. I saw that the envelope was directed to you.’ ‘Or to Geoffrey--which? It is, as you see, addressed simply “Mr. G. Arbuthnot.”’ ‘But Mrs. Thorne and Geff disliked each other. Do you think, even in jest, she would----’ ‘My best Dinah--let a molehill which, during fifteen months, has been assuming gigantic size, return, forthwith, to molehill proportions? This handwriting may be Marjorie Bartrand’s. One can imagine a classico-mathematical girl making that kind of “e.” It is certainly not Linda’s.’ ‘And the meaning of the solitary word “REPENTANCE!”’ ‘Ah! you must read your own riddles,’ answered Gaston, with suavity. ‘Poor Linda and myself made an innocent wager of gloves, which I won. I know no more.’