'I never imagined,' she said in a low voice, 'that the truth was anything like this. I shouldn't have asked you if I had. A long time ago I knew that something was being concealed, but I thought it was an accident or--well, I couldn't conceive what it was and I grew curious, I suppose. When you came back to England I thought you might be able to tell me. Lately, however, I began to fancy that you were concerned in it some way. You might have sent Mr. ----' she checked herself with the name unspoken and went on, 'you might have sent him on some fatal mission or something of that sort. But this! Oh, why did you tell me?' She took her hands from beneath her chin and clenched them with a convulsive movement upon her knees. Her memory had gone back to the days when she and Gorley had been engaged, to their meetings, their intimate conversations. This man, in whose hand her hands had lain, whose lips had pressed hers, been pressed by hers, this man had been convicted of a double crime--dastardly murder and dastardly theft--and punished for it! Her pride cried out against her knowledge, and cried out against the man who had vouchsafed the knowledge. 'Why did you tell me?' she repeated, and the words were an accusation. 'You wished to know,' he replied doggedly, 'and it seemed to me that you had the right to know.' 'Right!' she exclaimed, 'right! What right had I to know? What right had you to tell me?' She rose to her feet suddenly as she spoke and confronted Drake. He looked into her eyes steadily, but with a certain perplexity. 'I felt bound to tell you,' he said simply, and his simplicity appealed to her by its frank recognition of an obligation to her. 'Why,' she asked herself, 'why did he feel bound? Merely because I wished to know the truth of the matter, or because he himself was implicated in it as the instrument of Gorley's punishment?' Either reason was sufficient to appease her. She inclined to the latter; there were conclusions to be inferred from it which staunched her wounded pride. Clarice turned away. Drake watched her set a foot upon the rail of the fender, lay her hand upon the mantelshelf and support her forehead upon it. After a little she raised her head and spoke with an air of apologising for him. 'Of course,' she said. 'You could not know that there was anything between myself and--and him.' 'No; I could not know that. How should I, for I did not know you? And I am glad that I didn't know.' Drake spoke with some earnestness, and Clarice looked at him in surprise. 'It would have made my duty so much harder to do,' he explained. With a little cry of irritation Clarice slipped her foot from the fender and moved from him back to the couch. She had given him the opportunity to escape from his position and he refused to make use of it; he seemed indeed unable to perceive it. However, she clung to it obstinately and repeated it.