His hands in his pockets, he walked across to the window and stood looking out. Then he turned to face Nancy.

“No. I am not sure that I do.”

“You feel that I ought to have told you before?”

“It would have been a little fairer to me,” he assented.

“I don’t see why,” she said defensively.

Barth raised his blue eyes to her face, and she repented her untruth.

“At least,” she amended; “I don’t see what difference it would have made.”

“Perhaps not. Still, it isn’t pleasant to be a stranger, and the one person outside a secret which concerns one’s self most of all.”

“No.”

“I wish you had told me,” he said thoughtfully. “It might have prevented some things that now I should like to forget.”