brave man. I found that he was a coward and a cad."

Something urged her to go on with her pointless questions--the same
inevitable Fate which, according to the Italians, "stands at the end of
everything," and which had prompted Mr. Hethbridge to bring this stranger
into the drawing-room.

"But how did you find it out?"

"Oh, I did not do it all at once. I first began by a mere trifle. It
happened that this man was reported dead in the Gazette--I showed it to
him myself."

The young officer, who was not accustomed to ladies' society, and felt
rather nervous at his own loquaciousness, kept his eyes fixed on his
boots, and did not notice the deathly pallor of Mrs. Agar's face, nor the
convulsive clutch of her fingers on the velvet arm of the chair.

She turned right round, with a peculiar movement of the throat as if
swallowing something, and made sure that the whist-players were
interested in their game. In that position she heard the next words.

"He did not even take the trouble to write home to his friends. I thought
it rather strange at the time, and told him so. Later on I heard the
truth of it. I heard him tell some one else that he was engaged to a girl
in England, and he thought it a very good way of getting out of the
engagement."

"You heard him tell that, with your own ears?"