There was silence between them; a silence neither could ever forget. It punctuated their mutual life.

She broke it. For a while she stood rigid and dazed—and then she laughed.

No lash in his face—even from her hand—could have hurt him so.

Again she waited: haughty and outraged now.

“He has stolen ten thousand pounds from me.”

She neither spoke nor stirred.

“That is why Grant came here last night—to tell me.”

The girl made a gesture of infinite scorn, of unspeakable rebuke.

“My dear, I would have spared you this—if I could.”

She answered him then, contempt in her voice, no faintest shadow of fear in her brave young eyes. “I don’t believe it.”