“Why?” said Burke briefly.

“Because—­” savagely Guy flung back the answer—­“I would rather be murdered for what I’ve done than despised for what I’ve failed to do.”

“I see,” Burke said.  “Then why not let me believe the obvious without further argument?”

There was contempt in his voice, but it was a bitter self-contempt in which the man before him had no share.  He had entered that room with murder in his heart.  The lust was still there, but he knew now that it would go unsatisfied.  He had been stopped, by what means he scarcely realized.

But Guy knew; and though it would have been infinitely easier, as he had said, to have endured that first mad fury than to have stayed it with a confession of failure, for some reason he forced himself to follow the path of humiliation that he had chosen.

“Because what you call the obvious chances also to be the impossible,” he said.  “I’m not such a devil as to want to ruin her for the fun of the thing.  I tell you she’s straight—­as straight as I am crooked.  And you’ve got to believe in her—­whether you want to or not.  That—­if you like—­is the obvious.”  He broke off, breathing hard, yet in a fashion oddly triumphant, as if in vindicating the girl he had somehow vindicated himself also.

Burke looked at him fixedly for a few seconds longer.  Then, abruptly, as if the words were hard to utter, he spoke; “I believe you.”

Guy relaxed with what was almost a movement of exhaustion, but in a moment he braced himself again.  “You shall have your satisfaction all the same,” he said.  “I owe you that.  Where shall I meet you?”

Burke made a curt gesture as if dismissing a matter of but minor importance, and turned to go.

But in an instant, as if stung into action, Guy was before him.  He gripped him by the shoulder.  “Man!  Don’t give me any of your damned generosity!” He ground out the words between his teeth.  “Name a place!  Do you hear?  Name a place and time!”

Burke stopped dead.  His face was enigmatical as he looked at Guy.  There was a remote gleam in his stern eyes that was neither of anger nor scorn.  He stood for several seconds in silence, till the hand that clutched his shoulder gripped and feverishly shook it.

Then deliberately and with authority bespoke:  “I’ll meet you in my own time.  You can go back to your old quarters and—­wait for me there.”

Guy’s hand fell from him.  He stood for a moment as if irresolute, then he moved aside.  “All right.  I shall go there to-day,” he said.

And in silence Burke unbolted the door and went out.

CHAPTER X

THE TRUTH

When Burke presented himself at the door of the main bungalow he found it half-open.  The whirr of a sewing-machine came forth to him, but it paused in answer to his knock, and Mrs. Merston’s voice bade him enter.