Again Miss Forster shivered; she glanced about her, as if fearful that the other's words had been overheard. "What do you mean--about--Captain Draycott?" "Why, of course you know it was he who did it; you don't want me to tell you that. You know what cause he had; it was he who put him in the cart at that little game of cards." One could see that Violet Forster made an effort at self-control; but the hideous picture conjured up by the other's careless words was too much for her. She put her hands up to her face; she sank on to a chair, so helpless before the stress of emotion which seemed to be raging within that she sat swaying to and fro. The woman, still smiling, stood and watched; then she said, her voice seeming to be broken by laughter: "Why, I never thought that you'd take on like this, if you really are taking on, and it isn't put on for my special benefit; it can't be any news to you, you must have known. You saw the man lying dead there; you knew the cause he'd given--the person whose name we won't mention--to out him. What's all the fuss about? This sort of thing won't improve your looks, you know." If the woman paused expecting Miss Forster to speak, she paused in vain; the agony which seemed to be tearing at the very sources of her being had bereft her of the powers of speech. The spectacle she presented, instead of moving the other to sympathy, seemed to divert her thoughts into channels of bitterness. The smile passed from her face; her tone became hard. "What has Sydney Beaton to do with you that you should take on like this about him? Let me tell you something about him, which may be a piece of genuine news. If anyone ought to take on about him, it is I, since I'm his wife." There was silence; then the girl did begin to regain some vestiges of self-control. She ceased to sway to and fro; the dry sobs which seemed to be rending her bosom grew less insistent; she withdrew her hands from her eyes, she looked the speaker steadily in the face. "That I do not believe." The words were uttered with an air of quiet conviction which the other resented. "What don't you believe?" "I do not believe that you are Sydney Beaton's wife; your statement that you are makes me doubt all that you have said. I am sure that you are not his wife; I believe him to be incapable of marrying such a creature as you. He may have sunk low, but I do not think that he could ever fall quite so low as that. The fact that you have told me that one great lie makes it obvious that you have probably told me others; I doubt that he is the kind of person you make him out to be."