"You are sure?"
"Sure. Quite sure."
The man was deliberate. As no answer was forthcoming, he went on—
"Come, Mon, tell me. Guess there's something behind all this. Well—I am here to listen."
The woman stirred. She clenched her hands. Then her answer came.
"And I am here to tell you," she cried, with a sharp intake of breath. "I have lost something. I have lost something which is almost as precious to me as—as your love. I have been told that you can tell me where to find—him."
"Him?" The word rang through the quiet room.
It was the man's only comment, and a dreadful inflection was laid upon the word.
There are moments in life when acts are performed, when words are spoken without thought, even without actual impulse of our own. They are, perhaps, moments when Fate steps in to guide us into the path she would have us tread. Perhaps it was such a moment in Monica's life, in Hendrie's.
Certainly the woman had spoken without thought. She had no understanding of what her words could possibly mean to her husband. And Hendrie, surely he was unaware that murder looked out of his furious gray eyes at what he believed to be the mention of the man for whose downfall he had perjured his own soul.