“And then at the hotel I found the poor fellow, awfully gone down, and drinking away like a man with something on his conscience. I felt vexed with him for getting nothing but brandy-slings out of all that money, for there were people who needed it, and could have used it if he couldn’t. I found it was said that he was a fellow who was afraid of women. He had a queer way of looking at them, and his way with me was his general way. Perhaps he thought any one of them might be me, and the dread _wore_ on him. But he did not know me, and I rather had to press myself on his attention, to try to make things come about so we could settle on a divorce. But my attention to him made him shyer and more distrustful than ever; yet he was perplexed by a half recognition at times, too, I think. “He never knew me, though, till that night on the stairs when I asked him what would have become of that sister of his if she had been as unprincipled as he had been. And then, oh dear, poor fellow, that was the end of all for him! I have never been much to him, and never anything to anyone else, but I have always been true to myself and to my guardian angel.” She stopped and gave way to the weeping that had twice interrupted her, then said, drawing a full breath: “So I am honestly and only Mrs. Reginald Grove.” “Oh, my good Lord!” It was Reginald’s voice, in full manhood’s tone. “Oh, go to him, Ethel, I am afraid!” said Alitza. But Reginald, parting the blinds, stepped out of the long window and stood in the moonlight looking about him, with his hand to his head, gazing at Ethel, who, rosy-red with joy, looked into the eyes of an irate but not insane man. “I have had enough of this talking outside my window. I tell you I don’t know where I am. Send for Mrs. Mancredo. She’s a straight woman, but by George, how she _will_ lie. Why, Miss Ethel, I didn’t know you. You are looking old and queer, somehow. I’m frightened somehow. This room and place—? Send for Robert. He’ll take me round to my hotel in his trap, as he did yesterday.” “Take my arm for a moment, and we will walk up and down the balcony,” said Ethel. “Your foot feels as if it were asleep, does it not?” “It feels as though it were waking up. Get out, man! Hold off there!” said he, bracing back against the wall ready to strike out at Fleetwood, his nurse, who approached too much in the character of an attendant to escape distrust. “I am here, Captain Grove,” said Ethel. “You are my guest.” “I am your guest, Miss Ethel? Well, that’s all right then. You hear that, you peeping idiot back there? I’m Miss Ethel’s guest; but I tell you others, the whole posse of you, to keep away from me, or I’ll knock you all down, like ninepins in an alley. They are for shutting me up somewhere. I have heard lots of talk about it, and if that dark fellow isn’t a doctor, what is he, with his soft-stepping ways?