“No perspicacity of mine. It was the common report. You had lost your head over love unrequited, and it had become necessary to confine you for a while.”

“O, indeed! Go on.”

“I hear your little white teeth clicking. Rest content. You are avenged: he has married her.”

I jumped to my feet.

“He! de Crespigny?”

“Yes.”

I burst into a shriek of laughter.

“They were reconciled, then? O, the dear particular lady! Does he wipe his boots on her? Did he take his love-potion very strong on the wedding night?”

“Very strong, no doubt,” said Gogo. And then suddenly he clasped my skirt, and buried his face in it.

“He would; it was his way,” he muttered. “O, girl, spare me and my unhappiness—my broken dreams! Did you not know? I had always a struggle to keep him from it. And now he will go down, down.”