“I do, but why should I tell him?”

“Love is a light sleeper—who wakes very easily. Tell him—wake him up. The boy is drunk with success—blind drunk. Are you going to steal from a blind man?”

“I shan’t tell him,” said Quiltan, slowly.

“No, because you’re a coward. Frightened of losing ground. Her happiness! You don’t give a damn for it beside your own.”

“That’s not true. If I refuse to tell him, it’s because he wouldn’t care if I did. God! he isn’t even faithful to her.”

Clementine Rendall sprang to his feet and dropped a hand on Quiltan’s shoulder.

“You’re inventing it—inventing it.”

“No. He boasted at the club the other night of a girl he would take to Brighton.”

“He was drunk.”

“He had been drinking.”