“Yes; it came true.  It was wonderful.  It was the day Mr. Wayne sentenced him.  I knew what he was suffering—­Mr. Wayne, I mean.  We were all suffering; even Mrs. Wayne, who in her gentle way was generally so hard.  Some people thought Mr. Wayne needn’t have done it; and I suppose it was just his conscientiousness—­because he had such a horror of the thing—­that drove him on to it.  He thought he mustn’t shirk his duty.  But that night at the house was awful.  We dressed for dinner, and tried to act as if nothing frightful had happened—­but it was as if the hangman was sitting with us at the table.  At last I couldn’t endure it.  I went out into the garden—­you remember it was one of those gardens with clipped yews.  Out there, in the air, I stopped thinking of Mr. Wayne and his distress to think of Norrie Ford.  It seemed to me as if, in some strange way, he belonged to me—­that I ought to do something—­as my mother had done for my father.  And then—­all of a sudden—­I saw him creep in.”

“How did you know it was he?”

“I thought it must be, though I was only sure of it when I was on the terrace and saw his face.  He crept along and crept along—­Oh, such a forlorn, hopeless, outcast figure!  My heart ached at the sight of him.  I didn’t know what he meant to do, and at first I had no intention of attempting anything.  It was by degrees that my own thought about the studio came back to me.  By that time he was on the veranda of the house, and I was afraid he meant to kill Mr. Wayne.  I went after him.  I thought I would entice him away and hide him.  But the minute he heard my footstep he leaped into the house.  The next I saw, he was talking to Mr. and Mrs. Wayne—­and something told me he wouldn’t hurt them.  After that I watched my chance till he looked outward, and then I beckoned to him.  That’s how it happened.”

“And then?”

“After that everything was easy.  He must have told you.  I kept him in the studio for three weeks, and brought him food—­and clothing of my father’s.  It seemed to me that my father was doing everything—­not I. That’s what made it so simple.  I know my father would have wanted me to do it.  I was only the agent in carrying out his will.”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” Conquest said, grimly.

“It’s the only way I’ve ever looked at it; the only way I ever shall.”

* * * * *

“It was a romantic situation,” he observed, when she had given him the outlines of the rest of the story.  “I wonder you didn’t fall in love with him.”

He smoothed the colorless line of his mustache, as though concealing a smile.  He had recaptured the teasing tone he liked to employ toward her, though its nervous sharpness would have betrayed him had she suspected his real thoughts.  While she said nothing in response, the tilt of her head was that which he associated with her moods of indignation or pride.

“Perhaps you did,” he persisted.  Then, as she remained silent, “Did you?”