"Let's hear what you've been doing with yourself at home, Dick," he said suddenly. "You're not coherent on paper. I want a few facts. You went abroad latterly, didn't you? Toboganning, and that sort of thing, I suppose?" "Yes; went with those cousins I told you of--to Zermatt." "Delectable spot," Lenox remarked drily, his eyes on the bowl of his pipe. "Hope you enjoyed yourself there?" "Yes, rather so. Had a rattling good time." Then he leaned forward again, elbows on knees. "Look here, Lenox, old chap; I'm no hand at skirting round a subject, and I feel bound to tell you that I know now . . . what happened there five years ago." Lenox started so violently that the pipe dropped from his hand. A minimum of sleep and a maximum of tobacco do not tend to steady a man's nerve. "How the devil d'you come to do that?" he asked, picking up his fallen treasure, and readjusting its contents. "Well, you see, I happened to be with my cousins when they found out about it. Queer what a deal of trouble some women will take just to satisfy a bit of curiosity." "Damn their curiosity!" Lenox muttered between his teeth, adding something hastily, "You can spare me the details. Nothing stands a chance against a woman's passion for other people's affairs. Very straight of you to speak out at once. Don't allude to it again, though;--that's all." "But, Lenox," Richardson persisted, not without misgiving, for it is ill work tampering with the reserve of a Scot, "there's just one question I want to ask you, and I think I have a right to know the truth. I remember writing a certain letter to you that autumn; a rather disparaging letter about--Miss Maurice." The name tripped him up, and he reddened. "I beg your pardon; I ought to say Mrs Lenox, though she still paints under the other name." "Say Miss Maurice, then, by all means," Lenox answered coldly. "She is welcome to call herself what she pleases so far as I am concerned. Go on." "I want to know when that letter reached you." "On the afternoon of the day--I was married." "Good Lord!" the other ejaculated blankly. "And all that I wrote of,--was it news to you?" Lenox nodded without looking up. "My dear fellow, for God's sake don't tell me that a thoughtless letter of mine was responsible----" Lenox rose and went over to the mantelpiece. The full light on his face was more than he cared about just then. "You asked for the truth," he said, in a hard, even voice, "and--you have made a clean shot at it. We separated that day. I have neither seen nor heard of her since." A long silence followed this bald statement of the case. Max Richardson had no words in which to express the pain he felt. Brutus arose, and rubbed himself against his master's legs, as if dimly aware that sympathy of some sort was required of him, and the regular beat of the sentry's footsteps asserted itself in the stillness.