* * * * * * * *
Meanwhile Bert drove straight to the Grange, inquired for Lance, and found him alone in the smoking-room, sunk in profound gloom and a large arm-chair.
"Burmester," he said abruptly, "I've come to talk to you—to tell you something that will perhaps sever our friendship for ever. Confession is good, they say; but I funk mine." He sank down in the opposite chair, drawing out his cigar-case. "I funk it; make it as easy as you can, old man."
Lance was not smoking. He lifted a haggard young face from the depths of his chair.
"Sorry," he said nervously, "but fact is, I'm feeling a bit off—preoccupied. I must own I'm not in a sympathetic mood."
"It's about that—same thing. My confession touches the spot," said Hubert.
"What are you talking about?"
"You are upset because you find scandal busy with the name of ... your ... the girl you love. And because you feel she hasn't been open with you. You don't doubt her, but you feel there are things you should have known, which she has kept back. Is that so?"
"That's precisely it," said Lance hurriedly. "I oughtn't to talk to you about it—about her. But there must be some kind of understanding between me and her if—if things are to go on. I feel a brute, to talk like this, but I am all abroad, so to speak. We have had a very unpleasant scene here. Old Cooper turned up, and said there were wild rumours flying about, on the authority of those who claimed to have known her in Africa, to the effect that she, Melicent, had got out of her bedroom window and gone with a man called Mestaer, and that she had been in his house three or four weeks. He said he came to Melicent for an authoritative contradiction. He wished to be able to refute the story; thought he had a right to ask for the exact facts."
He leaned forward, running his hands up through his hair.