“I don’t see it!” I declared, but I saw the reason of his anger and it made me angrier still. _His_ dignity compromised! His official dignity as a _fiancé_! So I had heard of married men, with wives to whom they were utterly indifferent, still showing that furious male jealousy of other men. “But I should have been doing nothing against our contract.” “Nothing against the letter of it, you think? But when I asked you to enter into it, one of my first questions, you’ll remember, was whether you were already engaged.” “Well?” “Well! I shouldn’t have troubled you if I’d known all this. I’m sorry.” “Known all _what_?” “Remember, it’s not the only time I’ve seen you with him!” he went off at a tangent. “There was that first occasion—at the Carlton. I thought there seemed something, when he congratulated me! And then that time at the flat. He had eyes for nothing but you.” “Oh, _hadn’t_ he!” I was breaking in, but my late employer went on with his indictment. “Even Montresor, at our house, seemed to know all about it! And now his meeting you in Wales—You won’t tell me that wasn’t by appointment?” “I will,” I said, lifting my head. “I do, Mr. Waters. It wasn’t.” He was silent for a moment. “Please take my word.” “Of course, if you say so!” he agreed quickly. Then, more quickly still, “But if he didn’t send that telegram, who did?” “You saw it! It was signed.” “Yes; by your friend Miss Harradine. That says nothing. You asked her to send it—wired the night before, perhaps.... Didn’t you?” he cross-examined me. “Didn’t you?” “Well—if I did? Yes!” “Why did you, Miss Trant?” I looked away from him, mutinous but helpless, at the border of the path in front, with its little clumps of heat-shrivelled purple pansies, drooping over the powdery earth. There was something that no cross-examination should get out of me! Let him know that I couldn’t bear to stay in the same place with him—first, because he’d kissed me; next, because there was no reason that he should ever kiss me again ... every reason that he would not? Never! “Why had you to go?” “Oh!” I cried, with a little stamp of my shoe on the gravel. “Why need you pry into—into what’s my affair alone? Is even an _official fiancée_ allowed to keep nothing to herself?” “Very well,” he said savagely. Then, off at another tangent, “But at least you won’t tell me that the fellow didn’t want to marry you himself?” “What difference does it make if he did? That was ages ago, months!” I let out hastily. “Anyhow—one’s not supposed to tell these things, but, as we’re talking business, I may tell you as a business-secret that I refused him!” “You did?”—quickly. “Was this before—before our arrangement was made?” “N-no. Just afterwards.” “Ah! You weren’t free, you thought. Otherwise——May I ask if you would have accepted him?” “You’ve no right to ask!” “I know that,” he admitted angrily, “but have you—had you a right to make me look foolish—about him?”