No matter how great a control a man exercises over himself in ordinary circumstances, brought face to face with the painfully unexpected it is frequently the self-contained man who loses the grip on his emotions, and with it his more extended outlook in favour of an immense concentration upon the personal factor created by the new development. The story which Pamela unfolded produced some such effect on Dare. The emotions which moved him while listening to the sordid, pitiful tale were varied. The story of Arnott's bigamous marriage enraged him. The personal factor crept into that. The man had not only cheated the girl, he had cheated him,--robbed him of the only woman he had ever wished to marry. He had stolen her from him, having no right to her. This thought filled him with a bitter sense of personal loss, of personal injury. The element of self threw his imagination out of focus for the time. He had a very strong feeling that he wanted to, that he had to, punish Arnott for that mean deception. He would have enjoyed coming to grips with the man. Then he became acutely aware that Pamela was still talking, telling him other things of an equally painful nature. With an effort he brought his mind back to the subject. This part of the story was more difficult to tell. Pamela told it in short fragmentary sentences. She concealed nothing. She spoke of her enlightenment, of the difficult choice offered her, and her inability to choose the right course, in low strained tones and with downcast eyes. She did not look at Dare while she spoke. He was standing in front of the window, with his back to the opening, watching her with grave intent face which betrayed little of what he was feeling as he listened to the difficult recital. He was endeavouring, despite the disappointment her confession caused him, to excuse, even to defend, her choice. As she urged, there had been the child to consider, and at that time she loved the man. Then she spoke of the waning of Arnott's love, of his frequent unkindness, and her own increasing indifference. Again Dare was conscious of his personal interest in this part of the story. The self-confessed decrease in her love for the man who was not her husband, affected him directly. He felt glad that she had told him that. She passed on to Arnott's infatuation for the girl, who was her children's governess, of their disappearance on the same day, and the inevitable conclusion which, against her own will, she had arrived at in connection with that circumstance, and the fact that he had not written, nor sent any explanation of his absence. Then came the most difficult part of the whole narrative. Pamela had fetched the cablegram, which she had found in Arnott's desk and transferred to the safe, and this she placed in Dare's hand as the simplest way of explaining the duplicity she found impossible to put into words.