'I believe in him implicitly. I believe in him with all the strength I've got.' 'Then surely it can make no difference if you ask him. There can be no reason for him not to trust you.' 'Oh, why don't you leave me alone?' she wailed. 'I do think it's very unreasonable, Lucy,' said Lady Kelsey. 'He knows you're his friend. He can surely count on your discretion.' 'If he refused to answer me it would mean nothing. You don't know him as I do. He's a man of extraordinary character. If he has made up his mind that for certain reasons which we don't know, he must preserve an entire silence, nothing whatever will move him. Why should he answer? I believe in him absolutely. I think he's the greatest and most honourable man I've ever known. I should feel happy and grateful to be allowed to wait on him.' 'Lucy, what _do_ you mean?' cried Lady Kelsey. But now Lucy had cast off all reserve. She did not mind what she said. 'I mean that I care more for his little finger than for the whole world. I love him with all my heart. And that's why he can't be guilty of this horrible thing, because I've loved him for years, and he's known it. And he loves me, and he's loved me always.' She sank exhausted into a chair, gasping for breath. Boulger looked at her for a moment, and he turned sick with anguish. What he had only suspected before, he knew now from her own lips; and it was harder than ever to bear. Now everything seemed ended. 'Are you going to marry him?' he asked. 'Yes.' 'In spite of everything?' 'In spite of everything,' she answered defiantly. Bobbie choked down the groan of despairing rage that forced its way to his throat. He watched her for a moment. 'Good God,' he said at last, 'what is there in the man that he should have made you forget love and honour and common decency!' Lucy made no reply. But she buried her face in her hands and wept. She rocked to and fro with the violence of her tears. Without another word Bobbie turned round and left them. Lady Kelsey heard the door slam as he went out into the silent street. XVII Next day Alec was called up to Lancashire. When he went out in the morning, he saw on the placards of the evening papers that there had been a colliery explosion, but, his mind absorbed in other things, he paid no attention to it; and it was with a shock that, on opening a telegram which waited for him at his club, he found that the accident had occurred in his own mine. Thirty miners were entombed, and it was feared that they could not be saved. Immediately all thought of his own concerns fled from him, and sending for a time-table, he looked out a train. He found one that he could just catch. He took a couple of telegram forms in the cab with him, and on one scribbled instructions to his servant to follow him at once with clothes; the other he wrote to Lucy.