’He said I ought to.  I know more about it than the other directors.  Of course they mayn’t appoint me, but I expect they will.’  Mrs. Willoughby was silent.  She moved away from the window and stood by the fireplace.  Fielding crossed to her.  ‘Drake gave me one other piece of advice,’ he said hesitatingly,—­’not about business.  It concerned me and just one other person.’  He pitched the remark in an interrogative key.

Mrs. Willoughby glanced quickly towards him with just the hint of a smile dimpling about the corners of her lips.  Fielding found it very difficult to go on, but there was one clear, definite, immediate thing for him to do as well, he said.  ’Before I act on it there is something I ought to tell you.’  He paused for a second, and the trouble in his voice perplexed Mrs. Willoughby.  ’Whom do you think Mallinson got his knowledge about Gorley from?’

Mrs. Willoughby took a step forward.  ‘Whom?  Why,’ and she gave a little anxious laugh, ‘from Clarice, of course.’

‘No.’

Mrs. Willoughby looked at him for a moment in silence.  Then she drew back again.  ‘You told him?’ she asked with a quiet wonder.  ‘Yes,’ Fielding nodded.  ‘But I only told you,’ she said, ’because I wanted your advice.  What made you tell him?  There must have been some reason, some good reason, some necessity.’

‘No; there was no necessity, no good reason, no reason at all,’ Fielding replied doggedly.  ‘I told him because—­’ he stopped abruptly; the reason seemed too pitiful for him even to relate.

‘Well, because?’ asked Mrs. Willoughby.  There was a note of hardness in the utterance.  Fielding raised his eyes and glanced at her face.  ‘It comes too late,’ he said unconsciously, and he was thinking of Drake’s advice.

‘The reason!’ she insisted, taking no notice of the sentence.  ’The reason!’

‘I told Mallinson at the time when I was always meeting him here.’

Mrs. Willoughby gave a start.  ‘And because of that?’ she cried.

‘Yes,’ said he.  ‘I thought the knowledge might give him a fairer,’ he changed the word, ‘a better, chance with Clarice.’

‘Oh, how mean!’ exclaimed Mrs. Willoughby, not so much in anger as in absolute disappointment.  She turned away from him, and stood for a little looking out of the window.  Then she said, ‘Good-bye.’

And Fielding took his hat and left the house.  He went down to the office, and was told that Drake wanted to see him.

‘Drake!’ he exclaimed.  He pushed open the door of Drake’s private office, and the latter looked up from his papers.

‘You called me a damned liar this morning,’ he said, ’and you were right.’

Fielding dropped into a chair.  ‘What do you mean?’

’That there’s not a word of truth in the Meteor’s charges, and I am prosecuting the editor.  Did you post those letters?’

Fielding pulled them out of his pocket and threw them on to the table.  ‘Thanks,’ said Drake, ‘that’s fortunate.’