'Say, child, what you please.'
'I think that perhaps'—she did not dare to look at him—'if you could remember sometimes those dropped and forgotten evenings—those hours when you do not know what you have said and done—if you could only remember a little—we might find out more.'
He watched her face blushing, and her eyes confused, and her voice stammering, and he saw that there was something behind—something that she hinted, but would not or could not express. He sat upright, suspicious and disquieted.
'Tell me what you mean, child.'
'I cannot—if you do not remember anything. You come late in the morning—sometimes two hours late. You think it is only ten o'clock when it is twelve. You do not know where you have been for the last two hours. Try to remember that. You were late on Saturday morning. Perhaps this morning. Where were you?'
His face was quite white. He understood that something was going—soon—to happen.
'I know not, Elsie—indeed—I cannot remember. Where was I?'
'You leave here at five. You have ordered dinner, and your housekeeper tells me that you come home at ten or eleven. Where are you all that time?'
'I am at the Club.'
'Can you remember? Think—were you at the Club last night? George went there to find you, but you were not there—and you were not at home. Where were you?'