"I think Frank is quite right. What right have we to analyse her
motives?"

"Her motives were simple enough; sad enough too, in all conscience.
Why make her ridiculous by forcing her heart into the groove of your
philosophy? The poor woman was miserably deceived; abominably
deceived. You do not know what anguish of mind she suffered."

"There is nothing to show that she went to the Alexandra to meet a
lover beyond the fact of a statement made to Mike in a moment of
acute nervous excitement. We have no reason to think that she ever
had a lover. I never heard her name mentioned in any such way. Did
you, Escott?"

"Yes; I have heard that you were her lover."

"I assure you I never was; we have not even been on good terms for a
long time past."

"You said just now that the act was generally preceded by a state of
feeling long preparing. It was you who taught her to read
Schopenhauer."

"I am not going to listen to nonsense at this hour of the morning. I
never take nonsense on an empty stomach. Come, Thompson, you are
going my way."

Mike and Frank walked home together. The clocks had struck six, and
the milkmen were calling their ware; soon the shop-shutters would be
coming down, and in this first flush of the day's enterprise, a last