Welby came back towards him.

’There is no reason, I think, why we should carry this conversation further.  I will let Miss Morrison know that I have communicated with you.’

‘No need,’ said Fenwick, interrupting him.  ’I shall see her first thing in the morning—­’

’And’—­resumed Welby, lifting a book and letting it fall uncertainly—­’if there is anything I can do—­with Lord Findon—­for instance—­’

Fenwick had a movement of impatience.  He felt his endurance giving way.

’There is nothing to do!—­except to tell the truth—­and to as few people as possible!’

Welby winced.  Was the reference to his wife?

‘I agree with you—­of course.’

He paused a moment—­irresolute—­wondering whether he had said all he had to say.  Then, involuntarily, his eyes rested questioningly, piercingly, on the man beside him.  They seemed to express the marvel of his whole being that such an offence could ever be—­they tried to penetrate a character, a psychology which in truth baffled them altogether.

He moved to the door, and Fenwick opened it.

As his visitor walked away, Fenwick stood motionless, listening to the retreating step, which echoed in the silence of the vast, empty hotel, once the house of Madame de Pompadour.

He looked at his watch.  Past midnight.  By about three o’clock, in the midst of a wild autumnal storm, he had finished his letter to Madame de Pastourelles; and he fell asleep at his table, worn out, his head on his arms.

Before ten on the following morning Fenwick had seen Bella Morrison.  A woman appeared—­the caricature of something he had once known, the high cheek-bones of his early picture touched with rouge, little curls of black hair plastered on her temples, with a mincing gait, and a manner now giggling and now rude.  She was extremely sorry if she had put him out—­really particularly sorry!  She wouldn’t have done so for the world; but her curiosity got the better of her.  Also, she confessed, she had wished to see whether Mr. Fenwick would acknowledge his debt to her.  It was only lately that she had come across a statement of it amongst her father’s papers.  It was funny he should have forgotten it so long; but there—­she wasn’t going to be nasty.  As to poor Mrs. Fenwick, no, of course she knew nothing.  She had inquired of some friends in the North, and they also knew nothing.  They had only heard that husband and wife couldn’t hit it off, and that Mrs. Fenwick had gone abroad.  It was a pity—­but a body might have expected it, mightn’t they?

The crude conceit and violence of her girlhood had given place, under the pressure of a hard life, to something venomous and servile.  She never mentioned her visit to Phoebe; but her eyes seemed to mock her visitor all the time.  Fenwick cut the interview short as soon as he could, hastily paid her a hundred pounds, though it left him overdrawn and almost penniless, and then rushed back to his hotel to see what might be waiting for him.