"I don't want to waste many words on Mr. Scarth," she began, in the least vindictive of human voices; "but I ought to tell you that I quite liked him until the other day. I met him first at a country house where he was supposed to be tutoring the boys, but was really the life and soul of the whole party. It was extraordinary how he ran everything and everybody for those people; we were all devoted to him, and he says I asked him to come and see us in town, but he certainly never came until near the end of this last season. Then he made up for lost time; he's capital company, as you know, and we had him to dinner, and my eldest brother asked him down to stay in August when I was there. That was when we saw most of each other, and Mr. Scarth asked me to marry him----" "Good God!" "Of course I didn't like him well enough for that, though he _had_ put me against _you_!" "How?" said Dollar grimly. She was still peering into the fire; but he flattered himself there was more than firelight in the flush that almost rivaled the Venetian red still nearer to the bars. "He knows what I did two years ago." "Croucher, of course?" "He said it was you--that you gave me away to him in Switzerland!" "And you believed him?" "He made it just credible. He said you told him in confidence; he showed me a letter in which you reminded him not to let it go any further." "A forgery!" "I see that now; but it was a very good one, written on your club paper." "The man's an expert forger. Anybody can go into a club to write a note and steal some stationery. If only you had tackled me about it!" "I promised I wouldn't. I could hardly believe it of you, all the same--not that you were the first to tell him. But--but it did put me off--in spite of everything--and that was only in July." "Just when I was trying to see you, to put you on your guard!" She gave him her eyes at last, and they were wet but beaming. "I doubted it still more from one or two things he said when we had our little scene in the country; but I _knew_ there wasn't a word of truth in it before _you_ said a dozen words to me the other Sunday! It was all a plot to keep us apart--to get me under his thumb." "Did he threaten you when you--had your little scene?" "Not in so many words." "He will. That's where I shall come in." "His position was that I and my secret would only be safe with him." "As it never was with me?" "That was it; but now he knows that I don't believe him. I told him so when he called last week." "So you have had another little scene?" "I cut it short at that." "And there the matter ended?" "Between him and me." "Don't make too sure. You don't know your Mostyn Scarth as well as I do. I wonder what his next move will be!" The wonder lit the doctor's face with eager interest, but brighter still was the answering light under the toque with the ass's ears of watered silk.