His question seemed to surprise her. "In what way should you say I have been indiscreet?" she inquired. "The manner of your leaving is an open secret," he replied. "There is no secret about it," she returned with some impatience. "I just went. In my opinion I was quite justified in acting as I did." "Quite possibly you were," he allowed. "But unfortunately Mr Arnott acted in the same ill-considered manner. When people do these things they must expect gossip." She did not reply to this. Dare judged from her silence that she was fully informed as to the manner of Arnott's leaving home. This seeming knowledge of the man's movements shook his faith in her somewhat. "I suppose you think, with others, that circumstance had something to do with me?" she said presently. "I would only believe that," he replied quietly, "if you told me so yourself." She looked at him quickly, and then turned her face aside, unwilling that he should detect the shame in her eyes, and the gratitude that strove with other emotions at his unexpected answer. She knew so little of this man, who was but a chance acquaintance; and yet already he appeared inexplicably mixed up in her life, acquainted with all the most intimate details concerning her. It puzzled her why he should display this interest in her affairs. She felt that she ought to resent his unwarranted interference; and yet oddly she did not feel resentful. It was after all rather a relief to have some one with whom to discuss these matters, which were too private and difficult to speak of with other people. His knowledge of events seemed to constitute a reason, if not a right, for his discussion of them. But his intimacy with the Arnotts, and with Mrs Carruthers, inclined her to be somewhat on her guard with him. "I don't know why you should be less ready than others to believe the reports that are spread," she remarked. "Your knowledge of me is so slight. We've met--three times, is it?" "I am not judging from my knowledge of you, but from my knowledge of human nature," he returned. She laughed cynically. "Has human nature revealed only its amiable qualities to you?" she asked. "Oh! no. Not by any means. But humanity is not without a moral sense. The baseness which some natures reveal is a form of degeneracy,--a sign of mental abnormality. In the case of man or woman, deliberate viciousness denotes a kink somewhere." She pondered this. "Yes," she allowed; "you are probably right. But there are a good many people with kinks. I may have a kink myself... I believe I have." "Then straighten it out," he advised. "Oh!" she said in a voice of weary irritation. "What's the use of talking? Words are easy enough. It's easy enough, perhaps, to act, as well as think, finely when life runs smoothly. But life is terribly difficult for some of us--and dull. The dulness, I think, is the worst."