Jack added that he knew the man personally, and as he didn't wish to wait for office hours, would ring Sanders up at his own house. He would call there and tell the man something of the case to save Juliet useless questions and answers. Then, he hoped, they could both come round to see her. As it turned out, however, Manners went alone to the Phayre house. He had not seen Sanders. The detective (to whom Jack had vainly tried to 'phone the night before) had not yet returned from the country where he had spent the last few days. He had luckily left word that he would be at his office by ten o'clock; and having sent a request for an immediate appointment there, Jack was ready for a talk with his cousin. It was hard to put Lyda Pavoya's case impersonally and impartially to Juliet. As he framed the story in his own words, he saw Lyda again as he had seen her last night, heard her sweet, vibrating voice with its delicious accent. The glamour of the woman took possession of him once more. He tried to be judicial, but he could be so only in manner. Telling the tale, he was impressed with the way detail after detail fitted itself into probability; and as Juliet's face showed how the door of her mind shut against Lyda, his own opened. He had left Lyda, and had become her judge. Juliet's silent antagonism made him again Lyda Pavoya's defender. "I don't believe one word!" Juliet flamed out, when he had finished. Manners found himself quite unreasonably angry: he, who had walked the streets raging against his own weakness for Pavoya! "You wanted me to get her story," he said. "Well, I've _got_ it, and all you have to say is that it's a pack of lies. I can do no more." Juliet felt stricken. "Do you mean you take it all as gospel truth yourself?" she challenged. "It seems to me to hang together perfectly." "It _would_! She's clever as--a serpent." Jack frowned. "You don't seem pleased to have your own husband turned into a hero instead of a villain." Colour flew to Juliet's pale cheeks. "I don't need Lyda Pavoya to do that for me!" "Then," said Manners, coolly, "you make this distinction. You believe the good part about Pat, and not the good part about her." Juliet broke into tears. "Oh, Jack," she reproached him. "I might have known! You've gone over absolutely to the enemy!" Jack was conscience-stricken, for in a way it was true. He tried to console the girl as he had consoled her yesterday, and in the old days when she was a child. There was no "enemy," he said, or at all events the enemy wasn't Mademoiselle Pavoya. It was essential that they should at least seem to work in harmony. Juliet must trust him. She must pull herself together, and be ready soon to see the detective.