"Oh!" winced Alice.
"You see what he is," triumphed the sacristan's wife, "running after a married woman."
But Kittredge went on doggedly: "You've got to hear the rest now. One day something happened that—that made me realize what an idiot I had been. When I say this person was a lady I'm not denying that she raised the devil with me. She did that good and plenty, so at last I decided to break away and I did. It wasn't exactly a path of roses for me those weeks, but I stuck to it, because—because I had some one to help me," he paused and looked tenderly at Alice, "and—well, I cut the whole thing out, gambling and all. That was six months ago."
"And the lady?" sneered Mother Bonneton. "Do you mean to tell us you haven't had anything to do with her for six months?"
"I haven't even seen her," he declared, "for more than six months."
"A likely story! Besides, what we know is enough. I shall write M. Groener to-night and tell him the facts. Meantime—" She rose and pointed to the door.
Alice and Kittredge rose also, the one indignant and aggrieved at this wanton affront to her lover, the other gloomily resigned to what seemed to be his fate.
"Well," said he, facing Alice with a discouraged gesture, "things are against us. I'm grateful to you for believing in me and I—I'd like to know why you turned me down this afternoon. But I probably never shall. I—I'll be going now."
He was actually moving toward the door, and she, almost fainting with emotion, was rallying her strength for a last appeal when the bell in the hall tinkled sharply. Mother Bonneton answered the call and returned a moment later followed by the doorkeeper from below, a cheery little woman who bustled in carrying a note.
"It's for the gentleman," she explained, "from a lady waiting in a carriage. It's very important." With this she delivered a note to Kittredge and added in an exultant whisper to the sacristan's wife that the lady had given her a franc for her trouble.