When Nance re-entered, she was still standing in the middle of the room, her face white and tear-stained, her figure braced.

"Nance," she said, almost before the door had closed upon her sister, "I am going to tell you things I have never told you before. I feel I shall go mad to-night, if I don't tell some one. Don't ask me any questions. Just listen and--if you can--love me!"

Nance paused just inside the door. Her own face looked pale above the shimmering blue and silver of her evening dress; her dark blue eyes were full of a peculiarly tender light.

"I don't love you, Clo," she said below her breath. "I adore you. Tell me whatever you like."

Clodagh threw out her hands despairingly.

"I'm not worth love like that," she cried. "You'll know it when I've finished. Do you remember long ago, Nance, when James and I went to Venice? Do you remember my letters from Venice?"

Nance showed no surprise at the sudden irrelevant questions.

"All of them," she answered--"I have them all."

"Then you remember how I met Frances Hope and Val Serracauld--and Lord Deerehurst?"

"I remember."

"I was very much alone at that time, Nance. James was only a shadow in my life; and they--they seemed like sunshine, and I wanted the sunshine. I have always been like a child, turning to bright tawdry things."

"Clo! you're upset to-night!--you're ill!"

"No, I'm not. I've been seeing myself and seeing my life to-night. I liked these people--I liked these men who talked to me and flattered me, and ignored the fact that I had a husband--I liked them and encouraged them. And one night, on the balcony of the Palazza Ugochini----" She stopped, then made a sudden gesture, as if to sweep unnecessary things aside. "But I won't talk of that!" she cried. "It is the later time I want to come to--the time after James's death, when I met Frances Hope again." She paused to regain her breath; but the look of determination did not leave her face. Her dark eyes seemed; almost to challenge Nance's. "When I went to Monte Carlo with Frances," she went on, "I did not go to forget poor James's death, as you believed; I went to forget something else that had made me much more unhappy; and the way I set about forgetting was to gamble. Yes, I know what you feel!--I know what you think! But it cannot alter anything. I gambled.

I lost large sums of money that Frances advanced me. I _had_ to borrow, because there were formalities to be gone through about James's will, before I could draw my income. Then I came back to London; I met Val Serracauld and Lord Deerehurst again; I took an expensive flat; I lived like people six times as well off as myself; I gambled again----"

"Clodagh!"

Clodagh put up her hand.

"Wait! It's all leading up to something. I was utterly foolish, utterly mad. I borrowed again to pay my debts at bridge. Then one day Frances asked me for her money. It seemed like the end of the world; but it was a debt of honour--it couldn't be shirked. I wrote her out a cheque that left me beggared of the half-year's income I had been counting on to put me straight."

"Oh, Clo, Clo! Why wasn't I here?"

"Yes, why wasn't somebody here? But the worst is to come. I did not know where to look, I did not know where to turn, when suddenly--quite suddenly--I thought of your thousand pounds----"

Nance gave a little gasp.

"I remembered that. And, Nance--Nance, can you guess what happened?"

Nance did not attempt to answer.

"I took that thousand pounds. I stole it. Don't say anything! Don't try to excuse me! I want to face things. I told myself I would write and tell you; then I told myself I would say it when you came back. But when you did come"--she halted for a second--"when you did come, Nance, you loved me, you admired me, you _respected_ me, and--and I couldn't.

When you asked me for the money that night at Tuffnell, I knew I would have to find it and pay it back without making any confession to you."

A sound that was almost a moan escaped Nance's lips.

"Yes!" Clodagh cried--"yes! I know exactly how great a fool I was. But what is done is done. The day you drove to Wynchley with Lady Diana and Walter, I stayed behind to write to Mr. Barnard and ask him to advance me the money. But somehow I couldn't do that, either; and then--hate me, Nance! hate me, if you like!--Lord Deerehurst came to me when I was most disheartened, most depressed, and offered to lend me the money."

"And you took it?" Nance said almost quietly.

"I took it--yes, I took it. I have always been like that--always--always; grasping at the easy things, letting the hard ones slip by. And now!--now!"

"Now?"

"Nance, listen!" She took a swift step forward. "It was because of that loan that I couldn't slight him since we came back to town. You were right--you were quite right in all you advised; but I couldn't do it.

He had lent me the money. He had seemed my best friend. I felt I couldn't do it--until yesterday.

"But yesterday, when he left, and Walter spoke of him, I knew there was no choice. It was my own happiness or his friendship. And I--I decided for my own happiness."

She stopped, and drew a quick, deep breath.

Nance clasped her hands, fearfully conscious that more was still to come.

"When I have a difficult thing to do," Clodagh went on, "I must do it quickly. I can't wait, I can't prepare and plan, I can't brood over things. After Walter left yesterday I decided that what must be done must be done at once. I made up my mind that I would see Lord Deerehurst to-night; that I would be quite candid with him, explain my position--and appeal to his generosity to let our friendship end."

"Then to-night----?"

"To-night was all a deception. I had no headache--I wasn't ill. I shammed it all, that I might be alone."

"And while we were at the theatre you sent for him----?"

"No! I went to Carlton House Terrace to see him."

"Went to see him! Clo!"

"I said you could hate me! Do hate me! Despise me! Think anything you like! I went to see him; I went to his house--at night, alone--thinking, believing---- Oh!" She made a gesture of acute self-disgust. "Nance, need I say it all? Need I?--need I? Can't you understand without my saying? All that I had imagined about his friendship was untrue. Such people don't understand friendship. All along he had been waiting, quietly and silently, like one of those horrible hawks we used to watch at Orristown--waiting to swoop down when the right moment came." With an almost hysterical gesture she put her hand to her throat.

Nance's face had become very white; but in the intensity of her pity and love, she did not dare to approach her sister.

"Clo," she whispered, "you must tell Walter."

Clodagh's face suddenly flamed.

"Tell Walter! Tell Walter that I owe Deerehurst a thousand pounds--that I lied to him and to you all to-night, that I might go alone to Deerehurst's house! You don't know Walter! There is only one thing in the world that I can do--that I must do, and that is to go to Ireland and arrange about raising money on my share of Orristown. It can be done somehow. Father did it. I shall not eat or sleep or think until that thousand pounds is paid."

Prompted by a swift and eager impulse, Nance's face flushed, and she ran forward. Then almost as she reached her sister's side, her expression changed. She suddenly curbed her impetuosity.

"Perhaps it _would_ be a good idea," she said slowly. "When would you like to go?"

"To-night if I could! I feel--oh, I feel----!" Clodagh put her hands over her face.

Nance stood watching her for a moment longer. Then she slipped softly to her side, and put one arm about her neck.

"Don't be sad, darling," she murmured--"don't be sad! You shall go to Ireland to-morrow, if you like; and all the planning--all the explaining to Walter and to everybody--will be done by me."

And so it came to pa.s.s, in the extraordinary way with which events sometimes precipitate themselves, that at four o'clock on the following afternoon Clodagh was borne swiftly out of Paddington Station on the first stage of her journey to Ireland.