Somewhere in the house a door opened and shut. She put a hand violently to her throat, as though the shock of the sound were a blow that struck her there. She found herself braced against the door, guarding it; listening for footsteps, and strung up to keep away whoever came. Silence! But the attitude into which she had sprung informed her of the determination that had shaped unperceived beneath the tumult of her thoughts. She was not going to fall beneath the blow that threatened her! When she knew that, she was calmer, and set herself to satisfy her fears. What was shut in here? A wanton.... Wanton? Who never flushed, never railed, defied? A betrayed, then. Well, what was that to her, and how was she concerned? A betrayed? Who came with no story of betrayal that might or might not be, but with assertion of marriage that was capable of definite proof or disproof? Marriage? Impossible! A lie! Impossible? There came to her recollection of that strange disappearance of which Mr. Pemberton had told; was marriage the secret of it? There swept back to her that vivid and hideous nightmare on the very night of the news when she had cried "I hold!" and had been answered: "No, you do not--nay, I hold." Was that foreboding? There flamed before her again the mock of her plans, the humiliation of her downfall. She struck her clenched hands together; and as if the violent action caused an assembly of her arguments, she reduced her position to this: either the thing was true, in which case it could be proved; or it was a lie, in which case no consideration recommended her to do other than keep it to herself and herself stamp upon it. That satisfied her and she reëntered the room to act upon it. Audrey was on her knees by the chair. The sight shook her satisfaction. Wanton? Betrayed? A lie? Audrey turned towards her: "I have been praying," she said. She got to her feet and came forward a step: "She is coming to see me?" Lady Burdon said: "I have told her. She will not see you." She was committed. She stood agonisingly strung up in every fibre, as one that waits an appalling catastrophe. She saw Audrey wring her hands and heard her moan "Oh ... Oh!" She heard her own voice say: "You can bring your proofs." She had, as it were, a vision of herself opening the street door and watching Audrey pass her and go down the steps and out of sight. She was only actually returned to herself when she found herself, as one awaking who has walked in sleep, striving to make her trembling hands close the latch of the door. CHAPTER VI ARRIVAL OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR I The driver of a four-wheeled cab, crawling down Mount Street, pushed along his horse when he saw Audrey walking with very slow and uncertain steps ahead of him. He drew into pace alongside her and began to repeat: "Keb? Keb, miss--keb,--keb?" with a persistence and regularity that suggested it was the normal sound of his breathing.