Again he pressed her hand. The warmth of her body had raised his
blood to fever-heat.

"When we met again, after I came back, it was by chance. I refused
to speak to him, but he followed me all along the street, and I
didn't know it till I was nearly home. Then he came up again, and
implored me to hear what he had to say. I knew he would wait for me
again in High Street, so I had no choice but to listen, and then
tell him that there couldn't be anything more between us. And, for
all that, he followed me another day. And again I had to listen to
him."

Hilliard fancied that he could feel her heart beat against his arm.

"Be quick!" he said. "Tell all, and have done with it."

"He told me, at last, that he was ruined. His wife had brought him
into money difficulties; she ran up bills that he was obliged to
pay, and left him scarcely enough to live upon. And he had used
money that was not his own--he would have to give an account of it
in a day or two. He was trying to borrow, but no one would lend him
half what he needed----"

"That's enough," Hilliard broke in, as her voice became inaudible.

"No, you ought to know more than I have told you. Of course he
didn't ask me for money; he had no idea that I could lend him even a
pound. But what I wish you to know is that he hadn't spoken to me
again in the old way. He said he had done wrong, when he first came