He recovered his speech. “Before I answer that, perhaps you will tell me something.” “What?” “Something that has a bearing upon your plan with Jack. Excuse my curiosity--but perhaps you will tell me just what was the outcome of your affair with Maisie Jones?” She was no less curious than he in regard to one point in that experience--why he had refrained from action at the Grantham. She had been wondering about this, over and over, all these days. “You know about that?” Her words were as much an affirmation as a question. “I have had to know about it,” he said. “I knew of Jack’s engagement and its pressing character, and when you went to the Grantham and took the suite next to Miss Jones, I surmised, with the help of a few facts, the general nature of your purpose there.” “Then if you knew, why didn’t you interfere?” “When I surmised what your plan was, I felt it was no affair of mine. I was close at hand, but I kept myself in the background. I felt that it was your game, for you to play out alone.” She drew a deep breath. So that was his reason!--he had given her her leash, he was letting her run free. Though watching her, he was, as he had said before, leaving it to experience to make of her what it would. She recalled his initial inquiry. “The affair ended,” she said briefly, “by my being forced to tell Maisie Jones, in confidence, that I was secretly married to Jack.” “And Maisie Jones? I know she loved Jack.” “She promised not to tell, or interfere.” “Is that all? And if so, why?” “She seemed to think--I did not try to deceive her; she deceived herself--she seemed to think I would make Jack a better wife than she would. And she said that, so Jack wouldn’t get into trouble with his father about the engagement, she would have a letter written to Mr. Morton breaking the engagement off because she did not love Jack.” “Is that all?” She met his gaze with composure, showing nothing of the strange and persisting emotion Maisie Jones had awakened in her. “That is all.” “Thank you.” He did not pursue his inquiry, though his eyes regarded her keenly. “To come back to your request that I help you with Jack. Whether I help you depends upon what you intend doing. First, how do you happen to be here?” Her answer was prompt and direct. “After all that has happened, it seemed safest and wisest for me to disappear. Too many persons were becoming mixed up in my affairs--I wanted to be free from them.” “How about Jack? Is he also in the dark as to where you are?” “Jack knows. But I do not dare see him.” “And these are the only reasons you disappeared so suddenly from the Grantham?” “The only reasons,” she returned steadily. But consciously or unconsciously Mary here withheld part of the truth. There was something else: the unadmitted influence which the action of Maisie Jones had had upon her. “Next, if I am to help you,” continued Clifford, “what are your general plans for the future? You don’t mind telling?”