Claire hid her face in shaking hands. "Oh, Robert," she sobbed, "please don't." He approached and stood over her with quiet strength. "Why should I deny the most beautiful thing in my life? That would be to lower it to the level of Mme. Petrovskey's insinuations." The latter started up from her chair with a cry of suppressed fury. The baby-blue orbs flashed hell-fire. "You--you----!" she commenced. Then turned to Alexis with a resumption of her habitual sweetness. "What did I tell you? Was I not right?" "Keep quiet," he commanded. "You have made trouble enough for one evening!" He turned to Dr. Elliott. "So you are in love with my wife?" The other man looked down upon him from his greater height. "I have done you no wrong, Petrovskey." Claire raised a white and streaming face. "Oh Alexis, you do believe him, don't you?" He patted her trembling hand, with absent-minded kindliness. "Don't worry, child. Of course I believe him." Robert Elliott grasped him by the shoulder. "You are a real man, Petrovskey. I didn't know you had it in you!" he exclaimed naïvely. Alexis' smile was a trifle awry. "You are wrong, Elliott. If I were a real man, all this would never have occurred." His mother interposed herself between them almost savagely. "All this magnanimity looks very pretty. But what proof have you that they are not lying? I, for one, don't believe in this blessed innocence. Many a divorce has been granted on less substantial grounds than these!" Claire stumbled to her feet, and stood swaying against the table. "You are a wicked woman! How dare you lie about me and Dr. Elliott? I shall not stay under the same roof with you for another night!" She moved blindly forward towards the corridor. Alexis pursued her. "Where are you going? What are you going to do?" She turned upon him like a hounded creature. "Let me alone, I am going to pack," she cried at bay. "I am going to pack," she repeated wildly. She stumbled down the corridor towards her room. Mme. Petrovskey reseated herself. "Running away is hardly the action of an innocent woman!" she remarked. "Be silent!" exclaimed Elliott sternly. But he was too late for Claire had heard. "Oh!" With a gasping cry she faced them. Then crashed forward like a felled tree. "You have killed her!" Alexis ran down the corridor, and knelt beside the small, prostrate figure. He was about to lift it in his arms when the doctor interfered. "Put her down on her back. Here, let me do it." He shifted Claire expertly. "Don't you know that a fainting patient must never be lifted? It sometimes kills them, especially in her condition." "In her condition?" Alexis looked up from rubbing Claire's hands. "What do you mean? Is her heart affected?" Squatting upon his haunches the doctor uncorked his brandy flask. As he leaned over to pour the liquid between Claire's teeth, he looked Alexis squarely in the eyes. "Your wife is pregnant," he said shortly. "It is time you knew it."