"Peter Joliffe?" she said, with a certain scorn. "How little you know Peter, Oliver, if you think he would be any married woman's lover, let alone mine! Why, Peter's a regular old maid!" She laughed a little hysterically at her simile, and, to her husband, the merriment, which he felt to be genuine, lowered the discussion to a level which was hateful--sordid. "Then it's Uvedale," he said, heavily; and this time, so he was quick to notice, Bella did not take the trouble to utter a direct denial. "Bob Uvedale? Are you quite mad? Bob Uvedale is really fond of you, Oliver,--do you honestly think he would make love to me?" She was actually arguing with him; he shrugged his shoulders with a hopeless gesture. Then Bella Germaine came quite close up to her husband. She looked at him straight in the eyes. "I'll tell you," she said. "I see you really don't know. It's--it's----" she hesitated, again a look of shame,--more, of fear,--came into her face, "The person who has been giving me money, Oliver, is Rabbit." "Rabbit? I don't believe you!" "You don't believe me?" Bella drew a long breath. The worst, from her point of view, was now over. She had told the truth,--and Oliver had brushed the truth aside, so possessed by insane jealousy of Peter Joliffe and Bob Uvedale, that he had apparently no room in his heart for anything else. Bella gave a little sigh of relief. Perhaps, after all, she had made a mistake in being so frightened; men are so queer--perhaps Oliver would feel, as she had now felt for so long, that poor old Rabbit could not find a better use for his money than in making her happy. She walked over to her pretty desk, and frowned a little as she saw its condition of disarray; the receipted bills which she had found her husband looking over were scattered, even the tradesmen's books had not been put back in their place on the little shelf. She touched the spring of a rather obvious secret drawer. There had been a time when Bella Germaine had hidden very carefully what she was now about to show Oliver as the certain, triumphant proof that his revolting suspicions were false. But of late she had grown careless. "If you don't believe me," she said coldly, "look at this, Oliver. I think it will convince you that I told the truth just now." Bella knew she had a right to be bitterly indignant at her husband's preposterous accusation. But she told herself that now was not the time to show it; she would punish Oliver later on. She waited a moment and then cried, "Catch!" Oliver instinctively held out his hands. A bulky envelope fell into them. It was addressed in a handwriting he knew well,--the unformed, and yet meticulous handwriting of Henry Buck. On it was written: "Mrs. Oliver Germaine, "19, West Chapel Street, "Mayfair." In the corner were added the words: "Any one finding this, and taking it to the above address, will be handsomely rewarded."