"It's easy for you to talk."

"Of course it is; and it will be easy for you when you've once got going."

"You don't understand."

"Oh, yes, I do. Sydney Beaton was here last night."

"Margaret! How do you know?" The girl threw the bedclothes off for herself, starting up from her pillow. "Has that wretch told you?"

Her ladyship regarded the girl attentively; then shook her dainty head.

"No one has told me anything. I just guessed, though perhaps you've told me as much as you very well could."

"I told you? What do you mean?"

"My dear Vi, consider. Could your conduct have been more suggestive?

Don't I know you? Aren't I aware that you're the coolest, calmest, most levelheaded of young women? Do you suppose that you acted up to that character last night? My dear Vi, something was wrong with you, so wrong that it had turned the girl I knew into one I didn't. What could it be? We know all about each other that there is to know, so that I knew that there was only one thing which could have on you such a dire effect. How did you know that leather bag was in that chest? Mind you, I'm not asking a question; I'm not trying to force your confidence; I'm only putting it to you if it isn't obvious that there was only one conclusion I could draw?"

The girl was sitting up in bed, white-faced, wild-eyed.

"Then, now you know why I wished that I was a ghost."

Again her ladyship observed her closely, her head a little on one side.

"Aren't you--doesn't it occur to you as being just barely possible that you're a goose?"

"Why am I a goose?"

"May I speak?"

"I can't stop you. You've evidently come here for that express purpose."

"I know you will misunderstand me, and fly at me, and scratch me, and do all sorts of pretty things."

Her ladyship sighed; her tone breathed resignation.

"You needn't be afraid."

"I'm not; only--Vi, if you only knew how sorry I am for you."

"I don't want your sorrow."

"Vi, I am afraid that your Sydney Beaton is a bad lot."

"Don't you dare to say it--you!"

"You can't believe that he isn't."

"I can, and I do."

"Was he Jane Simmons's catspaw, or was Jane Simmons his? I presume they were confederates. Only that could explain the little talk you had with her."

The girl clenched her fists; she drew a great breath.

"Margaret, I want to tell you just how it is with me."

"Tell on."

"I'd give--I'd jump at the chance of marrying him to-morrow."

"I'll do you the justice to say that I don't believe you. Even if you're a lunatic, you can't be absolutely raving."

"Let me explain."

"With pleasure. Your remark will need all the explanation you can lay your hands on."

"Do you know what it is--to love a man?"

"I'm rather fond of mine."

"Fond!" Nothing could have exceeded the scorn which the girl's manner was meant to convey. "Do you know what it is for your love for a man to have become so part and parcel of your being that life means nothing without him?"

"I'm glad to say I don't."

"Then, I do. So that, you see, is where we differ."

"Poor Vi!"

"Don't talk nonsense, Margaret; there's no poverty in such a state as mine. I'm far richer than you, because I have the only thing which life has to offer worth having. Don't speak; let me continue. You've read the fairy tale in which the heroine gets the gift of sight--it's an allegory. She meets one person in whose nature there is nothing hidden from her; she can see into his very heart. Now start laughing: I can see into Sydney Beaton's very heart."

"My dear, I'm very far from laughing. You're not the only girl who has thought she had that gift where a particular man was concerned. What would the police have said if they had caught the gentleman you name in the very act? You know, they don't consider motives, or peer into hearts; they only deal with facts."

"You don't understand."

"Well, make me."

"Aren't I trying to? But you will keep interrupting. Sydney has never been exactly wise----"

"So you've told me."

The girl took no heed of the interruption; she only glared.

"But I will answer for his standard of honour, and honesty, as I would for my own."

"I wouldn't."

"That's because you don't know him, as I do. They lied when they said he cheated. I spoke to some of them last night. Mr. Tickell, who was playing against him, admitted that he knew nothing about it, that he saw no wrong in anything that Sydney did, nothing in the least suspicious in his behaviour. Captain Draycott as good as owned that, in supporting Anthony Dodwell's accusation, he might have been in error; I could see for myself that that consciousness was weighing on his mind.

Major Reith tells me that it was all done in the hurry and whirl of a few mad moments. They talked it over after Sydney had gone; they were all agreed that they would have liked to have him back, to have questioned him when he was cooler and they also. I haven't seen Colonel Sandys, who, you know, was in command of the regiment. I haven't had a chance. He's been abroad ever since. But I've been given to understand that, although he wasn't present, he expressed himself on the matter in terms which were unflattering to all concerned; and I've a suspicion that his feeling on the subject had something to do with his retiring.