There was a long silence. Trix gazed before her with wide-open eyes. Airey tilted his chair gently to and fro. 'You paid the money for me?' she asked at last in a dull voice. 'I gave it and Peggy took it. We did it between us.' 'Was it all yours or any of hers?' 'It was all mine. In the end I had that decency about me.' He went on with a touch of eagerness: 'But it wasn't giving the money; any churl must have done that. It's that now--to-day--I rejoice in it. I thank God the money's gone. And when some came back I wouldn't have it. Ah, there was the last tug--it was so easy to take it back! But no, we went out and--wasted it!' He gave a low, delighted laugh. 'By Jove, how we wasted it!' he repeated with a relish. 'Of all people in the world I never thought of you.' 'What I called my life was half-spent in making it impossible that you should.' 'Where did you get the money from?' The last touch of his old shame, the last remnant of his old secret triumph, showed in his face. 'I had five or six times as much--there in the safe at Danes Inn. It lay there accumulating, accumulating, accumulating. That was my delight.' 'You were rich?' 'I had made a good income for five or six years. You know what I spent. Will you give a name to what was my propensity?' For an instant he was bitter. The mood passed; he laughed again. 'You must have been very miserable?' she concluded. 'Worse than that. I was rather happy. Happy, but afraid. A week ago I should have fled to the ends of the earth sooner than tell you. I couldn't have borne to be found out.' 'I know, I know,' she cried, in quick understanding. 'I felt that at----' She stopped in embarrassment. Airey's nod saved her the rest. 'But now I can talk of it. I don't mind now. I'm free.' He broke into open laughter. 'I've spent a thousand pounds to-day. It sounds too deliciously impossible.' She gave a passing smile; she had not seen the thing done, and hardly appreciated it. Her mind flew back to herself again. 'And you bought Mr. Fricker off? You ransomed me?' 'You were angry with Tommy, you were angry with Peggy'--he turned his chair round suddenly and rested his hands on the back of it--'are you angry with me?' She made a gesture of petulant protest. 'It leaves me a helpless fool again,' she murmured. 'It was the price of my liberty more than of yours. I had a right--a right--to pay it. Won't you come to the soul shop too? I've been there now; I can show you the way. There was my life--and yours. What was I to do?' 'You meant to deceive me?'