"Well done, little sister!" he exclaimed, a ring of wholehearted admiration in his voice. "We'll stick it out together--stay here and live it down." He held out his hand and, Ann laying hers within it, they shook hands soberly, just as in earlier days they had so often shaken hands over some childish pact. The loyalty of Ann's friends, of Lady Susan and of Cara and the rector, was a very real consolation. Lady Susan had descended on the Cottage the moment the story came to her ears--which happened to be on the very day following Coventry's departure from Silverquay. Brett, she vouchsafed, had run up to town unexpectedly for a few days. "And he's just as well out of the way," she added briskly, "till we've got this tangle straight"--little dreaming that her nephew was responsible for the whole knotting of the tangled skein. By kindly probing she elicited the real, grim tragedy which lay behind all the gossip, and her anger against Eliot knew no bounds. But once she had given characteristic expression to her opinion of men in general, and of Eliot in particular, she promptly set to work to try and mend matters. "_I_ can explain to Eliot how you came to be at the Hotel de Loup that night," she asserted. "He won't presume to doubt me!" "No. But he _has_ presumed to doubt me," replied Ann bitterly. "So it wouldn't help in the least if you explained all day." "How do you mean--wouldn't help?" "Because what matters is whether Eliot himself trusts me--not whether he has everything explained to him," said Ann. "He must trust me because I'm trustworthy--not because you guarantee me." "My dear--that's the ideal attitude. But"--Lady Susan sighed and smiled in the same breath--"we've got to make allowances for poor human nature. We're all so very far from being ideal in this sinful old world. Be sensible, Ann darling," she coaxed, "and let me assure Eliot you were up at the Hotel de Loup alone." Ann shook her head. "You can't, dear Lady Susan. Because--I wasn't alone. Tony and I were there together." Lady Susan turned on her a face of blank astonishment. "You weren't alone?" she exclaimed. "But--I don't understand. Philip told me that Tony ran over to Geneva that day and stayed the night there!" "Did he?" Ann's heart grew very soft at the thought of Tony's boyishly crude effort to protect her from the possible consequence of their night's sojourn at the hotel. "I'm afraid Tony let him think that on my account--in order to shield me.... I should have told you all about it at the time," she went on, "only--don't you remember--you had sprained your ankle, and you were in so much, pain that I just didn't want to bother you with the matter." Lady Susan looked distressed. "But, my dear, what possessed you to stay the night up there--with Tony? You must have known people would talk if it ever became known."