She glanced at him in rather resentful surprise. "Now don't be tiresome," she said quickly. "I know all about it, and we haven't much time to talk. I can't throw over any more partners. Stella was worried, upset, at seeing you so unexpectedly. I said I'd find you and explain. She's staying with me; we were girls together, you know. I dare say Stella has told you about me, Maud Verrall?"
"Yes, of course." Of course he knew about Maud Verrall, and The Court and The Chestnuts, and Grandmamma and the Aunts; had any detail of Stella's childhood, imparted to him by her, faded from his mind!
"We only got into touch with each other again at the beginning of this hot weather; somehow we'd stopped writing. But when I settled to come up here I wrote and asked if I could break my journey with the Crayfields for a few days. What an awful hole Rassih is! I found Stella half dead. That old brute, Colonel Crayfield, ought to be shot, and his horrible servant too. Between them they had nearly killed the poor girl."
Philip moved uneasily, and drew in his breath. "Do you——" he began, but he was not allowed to finish his question; Mrs. Matthews took it up.
"Do I know everything? Of course Stella told me, and the silly row about the pearls that gave the show away. She had a perfectly poisonous time after you left; I don't know how she got through it, and I'm sure she doesn't know either. When I turned up, old Crayfield was getting rather sick of her always being seedy; and I diddled him into letting her come with me. He took a fancy to me, and I let him—any port in a storm! We've lived in terror that he would come up on leave, but luckily he hasn't been able to get away. Stella was awfully ill for the first few weeks after we arrived——"
"She looks very well now," said Philip coldly, "and happy," he added.
His companion smote him sharply on the knee with her fan.
"My good man, you ought to be thankful, both for your own sake and for hers!"
"I am; and for that reason don't you think I'd better go without seeing her again?"