"And you are putting up this fence between us, when--I might be some comfort to you," he exclaimed, almost roughly, getting up as he spoke to lean against the mantelpiece, and glower threateningly down at her, "when every reasonable being would tell you that he----" "Ah! hush!" she cried, and the sudden sharp anguish in her tones gave him pause; "don't let us go into it all over again. Whilst I feel--as I do feel--I must go on in the way I have marked out for myself, one can only follow the right as one sees it. Besides which----" "Besides which--his little finger is more to you than----" "Ah! don't--_don't_!" she interrupted him again, her eyes darkening and deepening with agony. "Rupert, I can't bear it; there are some things I am not strong enough to bear." "I was a brute," he said, his rough tone changing all at once into caressing tenderness; "I let myself go--I was an utter brute. Forgive me, dear--and--try to forget." He sat down beside her again, and his face, which had shown the same strong emotion that had rang in his words, resumed its quiet look of strength. A great relief swept over the woman's beautiful features, but she was shivering from head to foot, and in her eyes there still lay a haunting anguish. With an effort--how great an effort only she herself knew--she regained her self-control, and her voice, though still shaken, was very gentle again. "Tell me now about the poor little girl, and the matrimonial letter. Can we put our heads together to devise any way of helping her?" "I might conceivably get her some work," Rupert answered, "but people are a little chary of engaging employees recommended by bachelors like myself. Cicely might help her, but, first of all, I must find out if she is genuine. I couldn't impose a stranger, even on Cicely, good-natured, easy-going little soul that she is. And to find out anything about this girl will entail--meeting her!" Margaret Stanforth smiled. "Poor Rupert!" "I am not by way of making rendezvous with young women," he said with sarcasm; "it is not a pastime in which I have ever indulged. At the same time, I don't want to let a fellow creature go empty away, if I could really help her." "How would it be if you suggested her coming here? I could see her too, and--two heads being better than one--we might be able to do something really helpful. If the letter is sincere, it is obvious the girl is not a mere husband hunter; she is at her wits' end, and--I can't bear to think of any girl stranded in this great hungry London. I myself"--she pulled herself up short, leaving her sentence unfinished, then went on more quietly: "Write to C.M. and appoint a meeting here. Say this is the house of a lady of your acquaintance, ask her to come and see me--and incidentally to see you."