It was out at last. He had blundered clumsily, and he knew it. The colour drained from Eileen's face and she stood rigid as a statue for a moment. Then slowly she swayed forward. He stretched out his arms to prevent her from falling. She waved him aside dumbly and tottered to a couch. His directness had been more merciful than he had thought. She was stunned, dazed by her calamity. Her very silence frightened the man. She sat bolt upright, her hand resting limply in her lap and her dull eyes staring into vacancy. A tiny clock on the mantelpiece ticked loudly.
"Dead!" she whispered at last. There was no trace of unsteadiness in her voice and her eyes were dry. She spoke mechanically. "And it is our wedding-day! Dead! Bob is dead?"
Her hair had fallen about her shoulders, and, beautiful in her grief, she inspired the man with almost supernatural awe. He had moved to the mantelpiece and, resting an arm upon it and one foot upon the fender, remained looking down upon her. He was waiting until the first numbness of the shock had passed. The little clock on the mantelpiece had ticked out ten minutes ere she spoke again. But her voice was pitched
in more natural tones, and her face had regained something of its colour.
"How did it happen?"
Haltingly he gave such details as he knew. Her eyes were fixed on his face as he narrated his story. He hesitated as he referred to his telephone conversation with her. In her clear eyes he saw challenging scorn and stopped abruptly.
"You say that Bob asked you to lie to me?" she demanded.
"Not to you in particular. To any one who rang up. I couldn't know whether he wished his instructions to apply to you."
"No, no, of course not," she interposed quickly, but with a tightening of the heart he recognised the bitterness of her tone. For all her soft daintiness, there was something of the tigress in Eileen Meredith.
The man she loved was dead. Well, she would have her vengeance—somehow, on some one. She was ready to suspect without thinking. And Sir Ralph Fairfield had laid himself open to suspicion.