"What are you doing _here_?" I stammered when my tongue recovered its use. "No doubt you resent my appearance," she cried, in a high, shrill tone I had never before heard from her, "but I shall not trouble you further. I merely came to confirm with my own eyes what my ears refused to entertain. Now, I am satisfied." She half turned with the intention of reaching the street, but, rendered desperate by the absurdity of my position, I gripped her arm and pulled her forcibly into the entrance-hall, closing and bolting the door behind us. "You have seen too much not to see more," I cried. "I will not allow you to ruin both our lives by a mere suspicion." She was in a furious temper, but her sense of propriety--for she did not know that the servants' quarters were empty--restrained her until we had both entered the drawing-room. Then she burst upon me with a torrent of words. CHAPTER XXX SIR CHARLES DYKE ENDS HIS NARRATIVE "A mere suspicion, indeed!" she said, and there was that in her voice which warned me that I had better try unarmed to control a tigress than a wife who deemed herself wronged; "these are pretty _suspicions_ that surround you. A house tenanted by another woman where you are evidently master! A mistress who left the ranks of the ballet, or something of the sort, living in luxury on means supplied by you! A married woman who casts off her husband with her poverty, to take up a paramour and riches! Do you think you can blind my eyes further? I have the most convincing proofs of your infamy. Do not imagine that on any specious pretext I will condone your conduct. I despise you from the depths of my heart. Henceforth I will strive to forget your very existence." "Alice," I said, and if she had not been blinded by passion she must have been affected by my earnestness, "will you listen to me?" "Why should I? What respect have you shown to me that I should now seem even to accept your excuses?" "I appeal to you not to do anything in anger. You have good reason to be enraged with me. I only ask you to suspend your final judgment. Hear what I have to say, take time for deliberation, for further inquiry, and then condemn me to any punishment you think fit." She did not answer me. Her eyes were roving round the room and taking stock of every indication of poor Mrs. Hillmer's artistic aptitude. The place was eminently home-like, much more so than our elegant mansion in Portman Square, and my wife noted the fact with momentarily increasing bitterness. Yet I essayed my desperate task with failing nerve and terrible consciousness of a bad cause.