"Why didn't you give it back to Mr. Beaton? You knew that it was his." "Well, that's one of the peculiarities of human nature. I didn't. I couldn't tell you why; at least, it would take me a very long time to do it; human nature is such a mass of complications and contradictions. I gave it to you instead." "As if that were the same thing!" "As if I didn't know that it wasn't. Haven't I admitted that that is something for which you are entitled to throw bricks at my head, or articles of furniture, or anything that comes handy?" As the girl showed no inclination to throw anything, but stood there with that light still flaming in her eyes and her cheeks all glowing, Miss Spurrier went on, with something in her bearing more than a trifle malicious. "Well, now that I've told you everything that I came to tell you, and all you want to know, I'm going." She made a movement towards the door. The girl found her tongue. "But you haven't told me anything; at least, I don't understand what it is you have told me." "I've told you the one thing you want to know: that the one thing he values in the world is your good opinion; that still, although he's been very near to the gate of hell, he loves you. Good day." "You swear that you don't know where he is?" "I've no more idea of where he is, or where he has been, since that night at Avonham than you; and, as things are turning out, I would much rather continue in complete ignorance of his whereabouts until that business of Captain Draycott has blown over, which is a consummation devoutly to be hoped for. Is there any other question you would like to ask me?" She stood by the door, presenting a sufficiently appetising picture of a pretty woman, fitly and gaily apparelled to take her walks abroad on a sunny day. Something which she perhaps saw in her face moved the girl to what, coming from her, was an unexpected confession. "I'm not sure that I haven't been doing you an injustice." The woman laughed. "I shouldn't wonder. I've been doing the same to you. We are all of us continually doing each other an injustice; that sort of thing depends a good deal on the mood you're in and on whether the world is going well with us. I hope that, for both of us, in the future it will go very well indeed. Good-bye." The woman was gone and the door was closed, and almost before she knew it the girl was left alone. Some few minutes later there came a tapping at the door; it was opened, and Major Reith came in. He found Violet Forster sitting on the floor beside the couch, her face pillowed on a cushion. When she raised it he saw that she was crying. The sight moved him to sympathy and anger. "Miss Forster!" he exclaimed. "What has that abominable woman been saying--or doing?" Her answer filled him with amazement. "I'm not sure," she said, "that she is an abominable woman, and--I'm not sure that I'm not the happiest girl in the world."