"I saw him last years ago," said Conscience, and Marion answered at once, "I have just returned from the Orient. Mr. Farquaharson was a fellow passenger." "I had happened to hear of it." Eben Tollman's wife spoke casually and Marion countered with an equal urbanity. "Yes, one does happen to hear of these things, doesn't one? He called the meeting a coincidence and was surprised." "And you?" "I could hardly be astonished because you see I had, without his knowledge, waylaid him." The hostess may have indicated the astonishment she sought to conceal, for Mrs. Holbury laughed and again her eyes had that unmasked frankness which made surprisingly unconventional assertions seem quite normal. "I am wondering, Mrs. Holbury," Conscience spoke now without any hint of hostility--disarmed by her visitor's candor, "why you are telling me this." "When one has valued a friend and has had reports of him which are both deleterious and unfair it is quite conceivable, don't you think, that that person would wish to know the truth and to see the friend vindicated?" Mrs. Eben Tollman met the direct eyes with a level glance almost of challenge. "What reports do you mean?" "Mrs. Tollman," said Marian earnestly, "you have agreed to listen. Please don't let us fence evasively. You had the same reports of Stuart that the rest of the world had; reports for which I feel largely responsible because many things which seemed most damaging, he might have explained to his own full credit. He refrained on my account." She paused a moment, then continued resolutely, "Incidentally he knows nothing of this effort I am making to have you understand the truth. Do you want to hear the unfalsified story of how I was discovered by my husband in his cottage and in his arms?" Conscience nodded gravely and when, ten minutes later, her visitor had finished a narrative in which she had not spared herself, the hostess had an unpleasant feeling that her own attitude had been priggish while the other woman's had been astonishingly generous. That conviction gave a softness to her voice as she put her next question softly. "Why should it mean anything to Mr. Farquaharson now--my opinion?" "In the Philippines," said Marian Holbury, "the army officers have a name for a dishonorable discharge from the service. They call it the 'yellow furlough.' Do you imagine that Stuart Farquaharson could willingly retire in that fashion? Don't you see how greatly he would covet an honorable discharge?" Conscience felt suddenly glad that Eben would not return to the house before evening. She had another thing yet to learn and she asked faintly, "But it must have been hard for you to come and tell this to a stranger. Why did you do it?" "Hard!" For the first time the even control of Marian's voice broke into vehemence. "It was more than hard. It was all but impossible. But he couldn't tell you himself, without discrediting me and there was no one else to do it." "Even so I don't quite see--"