At the close of her brief meal Aline entered briskly with fruit and coffee. Her harsh face illuminated with curiosity, she handed her mistress a card. “The gentleman is downstairs. He hopes Madame will excuse the hour.” Her tone seemed to imply: “Madame, in this case, will excuse _everything_!” and Kate cast a startled glance at the name. He had come to her, then--had come of his own accord! She felt dizzy with relief and fear. Fear uppermost--yes; was she not always afraid of him? XIX. Chris Fenno stood in the drawing-room. The servant who received him had turned on a blast of lamps and wall-lights, and in the hard overhead glare he looked drawn and worn, like a man recovering from severe illness. His clothes, too, Kate fancied, were shabbier; everything in his appearance showed a decline, a defeat. She had not much believed in his illness when Nollie spoke of it; the old habit of incredulity was too strong in her. But now his appearance moved her. She felt herself responsible, almost guilty. But for her folly, she thought, he might have been standing before her with a high head, on easy terms with the world. “You’ve been ill!” she exclaimed. His gesture brushed that aside. “I’m well now, thanks.” He looked her in the face and added: “May we have a few minutes’ talk?” She faltered: “If you think it necessary.” Inwardly she had already begun to tremble. When his blue eyes turned to that harsh slate-gray, and the two perpendicular lines deepened between his brows, she had always trembled. “You’ve made it necessary,” he retorted, his voice as harsh as his eyes. “I?” “You’ve broken our compact. It’s not my doing. I stuck to my side of it.” He flung out the short sentences like blows. Her heart was beating so wildly that she could not follow what he said. “What do you mean?” she stammered. “That you agreed to help me if I gave up Anne. God knows what your idea of helping me was. To me it meant only one thing: your keeping quiet, keeping out of the whole business, and trusting me to carry out my side of the bargain--as I did. I broke our engagement, chucked my job, went away. And you? Instead of keeping out of it, of saying nothing, you’ve talked against me, insinuated God knows what, and then refused to explain your insinuations. You’ve put me in such a position that I’ve got to take back my word to you, or appear to your daughter and your family as a man who has run away because he knew he couldn’t face the charge hanging over him.” It was only in the white-heat of anger that he spoke with such violence, and at such length; he seemed spent, and desperately at bay, and the thought gave Kate Clephane courage. “Well--_can_ you face it?” she asked.