His voice was frigidly polite, a mask to hide his deep anger. For there she stood, with Jill's letter--Jill's of all people on earth!--that note of hers yet unread, caught up at the Club before he started. He held out his hand for it. Silently she gave it up. For once the woman in her quailed before the wrath in his blue eyes. "Thank you." He placed it in his pocket and smiled, his young face still hard. "Now we're quits ... eh! Fantine." She began to realize her mistake. "Quits?" she pouted. With one hand she smoothed the tumbled laces about her. "I think ... that you're unkind, Pierrot." To his dismay she began to cry. For indeed her nerve had given out, and the tears, at first assumed, grew real. She sobbed on, her head in her hands. "You're not going?--oh--Pierrot! ... don't go ... Mon Dieu! ... Mon Dieu! ... I didn't mean ... I only ... tease ... oh! unkind..." she choked on the word. McTaggart's heart began to soften. "Why! Fantine ... why--my dear ...! I'm _not_ cross ... honour bright! But it's getting deuced late, you know ... there ... there ... don't cry." He soothed her like a fractious child. "You go to bed---you're dog-tired. That's it--I'm a selfish ass! ..." He tried to thrust the thought aside of what was really troubling her. And in his friendly voice she read the failure of her deep-laid plans, conscious too that their early return had thrown out the scheme of time. Well, it was over--no! postponed... She lifted her tear-stained face, oddly swayed between relief and infinite discouragement. "Good night, Pierrot--I'm ... so tired! I'll go to bed--you're quite right. But come and see me very soon. Promise, Pierrot." He smiled at her. "Rather!--why! what d'you think?" But once outside the front door he felt a sudden sense of blankness. He hated tears and shrank from scenes with the wholesome distrust of perfect nerves. And then--that letter! His face darkened ... What an end to the evening! The unexpected with a vengeance. He started to descend the stairs when a sound below made him pause. Some one was coming slowly up. The steps passed the third floor and moved toward the last flight. McTaggart glanced quickly round. He felt a curious distaste to be found there at this hour, and his eyes fell on the lift, level with Fantine's door. He remembered he had brought her up, working the ropes himself, and there it stood in semi-darkness offering a hiding-place. He stepped inside and sat down in the far corner, holding his breath, as a tall man came into sight muffled in an overcoat. "He's going to the opposite flat. Jolly lucky the lift being here." McTaggart's soliloquy stopped short. He gave a little gasp of wonder. For the man passed him, unaware of his presence, making straight for Fantine's door, with a light, noiseless step that seemed to the other oddly furtive.