There was a long silence. She came close to him again, all her anger swallowed up in a great sympathy.
"Jim," she asked softly ... "was she so much to you?"
He became suddenly rigid.
"How did you come to know her? She wasn't your sort. She couldn't have had anything in common with you. What have you to do with women like that?"
His eyes narrowed threateningly. Her questions had struck him into a new alertness. She noticed that his knees were pressed together.
"The papers said she only came to England two months ago—for the first time. It hasn't all happened since then. I know it hasn't. There must have been something else. Something before. What was it?"
He sat glaring at her—locking and unlocking his hands.
"It all happened since then," he said jerkily. "I had never seen her before. There was nothing else."
"I don't believe it, Jim," she declared. "You are hiding something."
He avoided her steady gaze.