“Do you really believe I am innocent of the charge against me, darling?”
“I do, Hugh,” she answered frankly.
“Ah! Thank you for those words,” he said, in a broken voice. “I feared that you might think because of my flight that I was guilty.”
“I know you are not. Mother, of course, says all sorts of nasty things—that you must have done something very wrong—and all that.”
“My escape certainly gives colour to the belief that I am in fear of arrest. And so I am. Yet I swear that I never attempted to harm the lady at the Villa Amette.”
“But why did you go there at all, dear?” the girl asked. “You surely knew the unenviable reputation borne by that woman!”
“I know it quite well,” he said. “I expected to meet an adventuress—but, on the contrary, I met a real good woman!”
“I don’t understand you, Hugh,” she said.
“No, darling. You, of course, cannot understand!” he exclaimed. “I admit that I followed her home, and I demanded an interview.”
“Why?”