He sat down opposite to her with chalk-white face and reddened, unseeing eyes, and without any preamble recounted to her the story that Annette had told him a few hours before. "She wished you to know it," he said. An immense thankfulness flooded Janey's heart as she listened. It was as if some tense nerve in her brain relaxed. He did know at last, and she, Janey, had not told him. He had heard no word from her. Annette had confessed to him herself, as Mr. Stirling had said she would. She had done what was right--right but how difficult. A secret grudge against Annette, which had long lurked at the back of Janey's mind, was exorcised, and she gave a sigh of relief. At last he was silent. "I have known for a long time that Annette was the woman who was with Dick at Fontainebleau," she said, her hands still folded on the open book. "You might have told me, Janey." "I thought it ought to come from her." "You might have told me when you saw--Janey, you must have seen for some time past--how it was with me." "I did see, but I hoped against hope that she would tell you herself, as she has done." "And if she hadn't, would you have let me marry her, not knowing?" Janey reflected. "I am not sure," she said composedly, "what I should have done. But, you see, it did not happen so. She _has_ told you. I am thankful she has, Roger, though it must have been hard for her. It is the only thing I've ever kept back from you. It is a great weight off my mind that you know. Only I'm ashamed now that I ever doubted her. I did doubt her. I had begun to think she would never say." "She's the last person in the world, the very last, that I should have thought possible----" He could not finish his sentence, and Janey and he looked fixedly at each other. "Yes," she said slowly, "she is. I never get any nearer understanding how anyone like Annette could have done it." Roger in his haste with his story had omitted the evil prologue which had led to the disaster. "She wished you to know everything," he said, and he told her of Annette's treacherous lover, and her father's infamy, and her flight from his house in the dawn. "She was driven to desperation," said Janey. "When she met Dick she was in despair. I see it all now. She did not know what she was doing, Roger. Annette has been sinned against." "I should like to wring that man's neck who bought her, and her father's who sold her," said Roger, his haggard eyes smouldering. There was a long silence. "But I don't feel that I can marry her," he said, with a groan. "Dick and her!--it sticks in my throat,--the very thought seems to choke me. I don't feel that I could marry her, even if she would still have me. She said I must forget her, and put her out of my life. She feels everything is over between us. It's all very well," savagely, "to talk of forgetting anyone--like Annette," and he beat his foot against the floor.