And how the clue, now she held it, explained everything! Explained, first of all, why Chris, the ready, the resourceful, had been so tongue-tied and halting when they met. Why had she not been struck by that before? She saw now that, if she was afraid of him, he was a thousand times more afraid of her! And how could she have imagined that, to a man like Chris, the mere fact of running across a discarded mistress would be disconcerting, or even wholly unpleasant? Who better than he should know how to deal with such emergencies? His past must be strewn with precedents. As her memory travelled back over their life together she recalled their having met, one day at Hadrian’s Villa, a little woman, a Mrs. Guy So-and-so--she had even forgotten the name! She and Chris had been wandering, close-linked--for the tourist season was over, and besides, they cared so little who saw them--through the rich garlanded ruins, all perfume and enchantment; and there, in their path, had stood a solitary figure, the figure of a young woman, pretty, well-dressed, with a hungry melancholy face. A little way behind her, a heavy elderly gentleman in blue goggles and an overcoat was having archæological explanations shouted into his deaf ear and curved hand by a guide with a rasping German accent--and Chris, exclaiming: “By Jove, there are the So-and-sos!” had advanced with outstretched hand, introduced the two women, and poured out upon the melancholy newcomer a flood of laughing allusive talk, half chaff, half sentiment, and all as easily, as unconcernedly as if her great eyes had not, all the while, been pleading, pleading with him to remember. And then, afterward, when Kate had said to him: “But wasn’t that the woman you told me about once, who was so desperately unhappy, and wanted to run away with you?” he had merely answered: “Oh, not particularly with _me_, as far as I remember--” and she had hugged his arm closer, and thought how funny he was, and luxuriously pitied the other woman. Yes; that was the real Chris; always on the spot, easy-going and gay. The stammering evasive apparition in the Park had no resemblance to that Chris; Kate knew instinctively that it was not the fact of meeting her that had so disturbed him, but the fact that, for some reason, the meeting might interfere with his plans. But what plans? Why, his plans with Lilla--which would necessarily bring him in contact with the clan, since they so resolutely backed Lilla up, and thus expose him to--to what? To Kate’s betraying him? For a moment she half-laughed at the idea.