Vita leant against her cushions waiting breathlessly. Her courage was drawn up to an almost breaking point. She longed to re-summon the nurse, and once even her uninjured arm was outstretched towards the electric bell. But she did not ring. She had asked, nay begged for Ruxton's visit. She resolutely determined to face him and tell him all the miserable truth. He would despise her. He would turn from her. She closed her eyes to escape the picture she had conjured up of the cold look she knew his handsome dark eyes were so capable of. But he must know--he must know. She told herself this, and she told herself that she must accept her fate at his hands without murmur. It was a just punishment for her---- The sound of the door-catch moving startled her. Her eager, frightened eyes turned swiftly in the direction. In a moment Ruxton was standing in the room, his deep eyes smiling down at her from his great height. "Vita! My Vita!" Just for one moment the woman's head swam. Her eyes closed and it seemed that she was about to faint. But the sensation passed, and when the beautiful grey depths gazed out once more the man was seated on the edge of the bed, holding her hand clasped under the tender pressure of both his. "My poor little Vita! My poor darling!" The tones of his voice were tenderly caressing. They were full of a deep, passionate sympathy and love. Vita thrilled under their echo in her own soul. But there was no return of pressure in her hand. Her eyes gazed back into his full of yearning, but they seemed to have lost their power of smiling. "Ruxton, dear----" she began. Then she broke off as though powerless to bring herself to tell him all that lay ready marshalled for him to hear. "Don't distress yourself, dear. Don't bother to talk. It's enough for me to be here, with you, and know you are getting well." It was his final words which spurred her courage. She began to speak rapidly, and almost it was as if complaint were in her tone. "But I am not getting well--yet. That is what Doctor Mellish says, and that is why I must talk. Oh, Ruxton, can't you understand? I can never get well until I have told you--told you all that is on my mind. Dearest, dearest, I have wronged you, oh, how I have wronged you, and all because I am a coward, a miserable wretched coward who dared not face the death which they had marked out for me. It is that--that which brought about poor father's death. It is that which made me throw aside the love which was all the world to me, and promise to marry the man who pretended that he was about to save my wretched life." "Von Salzinger?" The question came with unerring instinct, but the coldness for herself Vita had dreaded was lacking. "Yes," she said, in a childlike, frightened way.