Flaxman dropped on the sofa beside her. "You feel with me, that it is a mere clumsy attempt to injure Meynell, in the interests of the campaign against him?" he asked her, eagerly. "I don't know about that," said Catharine slowly--a shining sadness in her look. "But I do know that it could only injure those who are trying to fight his errors--if it could be supposed that they had stooped to such weapons!" "You dear woman!" cried Flaxman, impulsively, and he raised her hand to his lips. Catharine and Rose looked their astonishment. Whereupon he gave them the history of the hour he had just passed through. CHAPTER XII But although what one may call the natural freemasonry of the children of light had come in to protect Catharine from any touch of that greedy credulity which had fastened on Barron; though she and Rose and Hugh Flaxman were at one in their contemptuous repudiation of Barron's reading of the story, the story itself, so far as it concerned Alice Puttenham and Hester, found in all their minds but little resistance. "It may--it may be true," said Catharine gently. "If so--what she has gone through! Poor, poor thing!" And as she spoke--her thin fingers clasped on her black dress, the nun-like veil falling about her shoulders, her aspect had the frank simplicity of those who for their Lord's sake have faced the ugly things of life. "What a shame--what an outrage--that any of us here should know a word about it!" cried Rose, her small foot beating on the floor, the hot colour in her cheek. "How shall we ever be able to face her to-night?" Flaxman started. "Miss Puttenham is coming to-night?" "Certainly. She comes with Mary--who was to pick her up--after dinner." Flaxman patrolled the room a little, in meditation. Finally he stopped before his wife. "You must realize, darling, that we may be all walking on the edge of a volcano to-night." "If only Henry Barron were!--and I might be behind to give the last little _chiquenade_!" cried Rose. Flaxman devoutly echoed the wish. "But the point is--are there any more of these letters out? If so, we may hear of others to-night. Then--what to do? Do I make straight for Meynell?" They pondered it. "Impossible to leave Meynell in ignorance," said Flaxman--"if the thing spreads Meynell of course would be perfectly justified--in his ward's interests--in denying the whole matter absolutely, true or no. But can he?--with Barron in reserve--using the Sabin woman's tale for his own purposes?" Catharine's face, a little sternly set, showed the obscure conflict behind. "He cannot say what is false," she said stiffly. "But he can refuse to answer." Flaxman looked at her with an expression as confident as her own. "To protect a woman, my dear Catharine--a man may say anything in the world--almost." Catharine made no reply, but her quiet face showed she did not agree with him.