"Surely she knew you went every day to church," Stransom objected.

"She didn't know what I went for."

"Of me then she never even heard?"

"You'll think I was deceitful. But I didn't need to be!"

He was now on the lower door-step, and his hostess held the door
half-closed behind him. Through what remained of the opening he
saw her framed face. He made a supreme appeal. "What DID he do to
you?"

"It would have come out--SHE would have told you. That fear at my
heart--that was my reason!" And she closed the door, shutting him
out.



CHAPTER VIII.



He had ruthlessly abandoned her--that of course was what he had
done. Stransom made it all out in solitude, at leisure, fitting
the unmatched pieces gradually together and dealing one by one with
a hundred obscure points. She had known Hague only after her
present friend's relations with him had wholly terminated;
obviously indeed a good while after; and it was natural enough that