Then there is silence for a minute or two. It is broken by Betty. 'When you had taken him from me, why did you send him away again?' she asks abruptly. For a moment it seems as if all the blood in Peggy's body had sprung to her brain, and was hammering at her temples, and dinning in her ears in a surge of passionate indignation. But at sight of the stricken face before her, her anger dies down again. 'I could not say anything harsh to you to-night,' she replies gently; 'but you must know that you are the last person who has any right to ask that question.' 'I know it,' replies Betty, with a stony indifference; 'any right, or any need either, since I know the answer. Do not I know that you were in the walled garden on that night last June? Did not I see you as I ran past? I knew what you would think, and I knew, too, that I could trust to him not to undeceive you.' Peggy is trembling like a leaf. Must she bear it? Does Christian charity command her to endure this ruthless, purposeless tearing open of her scarcely cicatrised wound? 'There was no question of undeceiving,' she says brokenly, yet with dignity. 'I did not trust to hearsay--I should not have been likely to do that; but I could not distrust the evidence of my own eyes.' Betty's sunken look is fixed on the girl's quivering features. 'It was a pity for your own peace of mind,' she says slowly, 'that you did not come a moment earlier, or stay a moment or two later! You would have seen then how much the evidence of your own eyes was worth. It would have saved you a good deal of pain; for I suppose you have taken it to heart--you look as if you had. I thought that you looked as if you had when I saw you at the Hartleys' party the other night. _The other night_'--putting up her hand to her head with a confused look--'was it the other night! or a year ago? or when?' Margaret's heart has begun to beat so suffocatingly fast that she can hardly draw her breath. What is Betty saying? What is she implying? Is it--is it---- 'I suppose,' continues Lady Betty, in the same level, even, absolutely colourless voice as before, 'that you thought we met by appointment? Poor man!' with a catch that is almost like the echo of a ghost's laugh in her voice; 'if you had seen his face when he first caught sight of me, I think you would have exonerated him from that accusation. What do you suppose that he was doing when I came upon him? Why, kissing the spot of ground that he fancied your feet might have touched! I suppose that that was what sent me mad! There was a time, you know, when he used to kiss the print of _my_ feet. Yes, I suppose it was that, though it seems odd now. If I had known how differently things would look from the other side of my Franky's grave, how little I should have cared!' The oppression on Margaret's breathing is heavier than ever--the thundering of her heart more deafening; but she _must_ master them--she _must_ speak. 'But I _saw_!' she cries, gasping; 'I _saw_!'