“I’d gone to bed, but he rang the night bell, rang and rang again. I didn’t know who it was when I shouted through the tube that I’d come down, that I shouldn’t be half a minute. When I let him in I thought he was a ghost. I was quite staggered, he seemed all frozen up, stiff. Just for a moment it flashed across me that he’d come from you, that you were ill, needed me. But he did not give me time to say the wrong things. ‘Mrs. Roope has just left me,’ he began. ‘The devil she has,’ was all I could find to answer. I was quite taken aback. I needn’t go over it all word by word, it wasn’t very pleasant. He accused me of compromising you, seemed to think I’d done it on purpose, had some nefarious motive. I was in the dark about how much he knew, and that handicapped me. I swore you knew nothing about it, and he said haughtily that I was to leave your name out of the conversation. And now I’m coming to the point. Why I am here at all. It seems she tried to rush him for a bit more, and he, well practically told her to go to blazes, said he should stop the cheque, prosecute her. He seemed to think I was trying to save myself at your expense. ASS! He is going up this morning to see his lawyer, he wants an information laid at Scotland Yard. He says the Christian Science people are practically living on blackmail, getting hold of family secrets or skeletons. And he’s not going to stand for it. I did all I knew to persuade him to let well alone. We nearly came to blows, only he was so damned dignified. I said I believed it would break you up if there was another scandal. ‘I have no doubt that Mrs. Capel will see the matter in the same light that I do,’ he said in the stiffest of all his stiff ways.” Peter Kennedy paused. He had another word to say, but he said it awkwardly, with an immense effort, and after a pause. “He’ll come up here this morning and tackle you. You don’t care a curse if I’m dead or alive, I know that. But if ... if he drives you too far ... well, you know I’d lay down my life for you. He says I’ve no principle, and as far as you’re concerned that’s true enough. I’d say black was white, I’d steal or starve to give you pleasure, save you pain. That’s what I’ve come to say, to put myself at your service.” She put up her hand, motioned him to silence. All this time he had been standing up, now he flung himself into a chair, brushed his hand across his forehead. “I hardly know what I’m saying, I haven’t slept a wink.” “You were saying you would do anything for me.” “I meant that right enough.” Without any preparation, for until now she had listened apparently calmly, she broke into a sudden storm of tears. He got up again and went and stood beside her. “I can’t live without him,” she said. “I can’t live without him,” she repeated weakly.