Nevertheless her judgment softened. "After all," she thought, "he isn't beating about the bush. He's being perfectly straight with me." And she discovered to her great surprise that it was not their having run away together which had been hurting her, but their omission to take her into their confidence. Ronnie, trying to guess the verdict behind those averted eyes, drew Aliette's letter from his pocket; and handed it over without another word. Watching her open the envelope, watching her as she read, he saw her fingers tremble, her violet eyes suffuse. "And _have_ you seen Hector?" she asked at last. "Yes. I saw him this morning." "What did he say?" Ronnie hesitated to tell the brutal truth; and the girl repeated her question, adding: "Of course he's going to divorce her." "I'm afraid, Miss Fullerford, that it's not going to be quite so easy as that." "You don't mean to say that he isn't going to----?" "He _says_ he hasn't made up his mind----" "But"--the girl was stammering now--"that's absolutely caddish. Hector's a gentleman. Alie's been perfectly straight with him. Besides, even if he had been badly treated, he couldn't, couldn't possibly----" And suddenly the full possibilities of Hector's persisting in a refusal to take action grew visible to the girl's mind. She braced herself to meet those possibilities; the personal consequences of them. She forced herself to ask: "Have you seen Mr. Wilberforce?" "Yes. Last night." "Did you ask his advice?" "Yes." "What was it?" "To do nothing. To wait." At that, thought of her own love affair obsessed the girl's mind. She visualized James, there, in the very chair which Cavendish occupied. Remembering a thousand unspoken hesitancies of James, she saw only too clearly the reason of those hesitancies. "How long has Mr. Wilberforce known about--about you and my sister?" "Some weeks, I believe." "You're sure?" The wounds hurt again, hurt desperately. James ought to have told her. "He never said a word--to me." She could have borne it better from James than from Cavendish. "Of course he couldn't tell you anything about it, Miss Fullerford. It was a secret, a professional secret. My mother told him----" "Your mother?" "Yes, my mother. She's with Aliette now." His voice softened. "She's on our side. You'll be on our side, too? Won't you? You won't let this--this contretemps come between you and your sister? I'm not asking anything for myself--but it's pretty rough luck on Alie." Mollie's decision crystallized. "I can't go back on Alie," she thought. "Whatever happens I mustn't go back on Alie." She remembered their conversation at Moor Park; remembered herself saying, "I don't believe divorce is wrong." "Yes," she said, and held out her hand. "I shall stand by Alie whatever happens. Will you tell her that? And say I'll write in a day or two. I don't feel like--like writing to her at the moment."