"No?" His lips drew back over his teeth in a grimace that was a dreadful travesty of a smile. "Then I'll ask you a simple question. Perhaps--after that--you'll understand. Have you ever stayed at the Hotel de Loup?" "The Hotel de Loup? Why--" The word "yes" was on the tip of her tongue. But before she could utter it the whole, overwhelming realisation of what he suspected rushed over her, and she checked herself abruptly, stunned into silence. With the amazing speed at which the mind can work in moments of tense excitement, she grasped instantly all that must have happened. Some one--she could not imagine who it was--had found out about that night which she and Tony had been compelled to pass together at the Hotel de Loup, and had made mischief ... told Eliot, putting the worst construction on it ... and he believed ... Oh! What did he not believe? A burning flush bathed her face, mounting to her very temples--a flush of shamed horror, and she fell suddenly silent, staring at him with wide, horrified eyes. "So you do remember?" he said, his voice like cold steel. "Yes." She answered him mechanically--like a doll which says "yes" or "no" when some one touches a spring. "And you were not there alone, I believe?" The other spring this time. "No," answered the doll. "Brabazon was with you--Tony Brabazon?" "Yes." Again the parrot-like reply. "Then I don't think there is any need to continue this conversation." As he spoke, Eliot turned and walked towards the door. Ann watched him without moving. She felt almost as though she were watching something that was happening in a play--something that had nothing whatever to do with her. Then, just as his hand was on the latch of the door, the strange numbness which had held her motionless and silent seemed to melt away. "Eliot, come back!" she cried out, and there was a note so ringingly clear and decisive in her voice that involuntarily he halted. "I have listened to you," she went on quietly. "Now--you will listen to me." He retraced his steps to her side, like a man moving without his own volition, and stood waiting. "Well?" he said tonelessly. "What is it you wish to say? I am listening." "It's quite true that I stayed at the Hotel de Loup," she said. "And it's true that Tony Brabazon was with me. But I have nothing to ask your forgiveness for." She lifted her head, meeting his gaze with eyes that were very steady and unashamed. There was something proud and at the same time infinitely appealing in the gesture. But Eliot regarded her unmoved.