“Never mind,” he said.  “You will tell me by and bye, or if you don’t I shall know it is all right.  Chris, Chris, you mustn’t get hysterical.  You are worn out, dear, and it has upset your sense of proportion.  Come, I am going to send you to bed.  We will go into these money matters in the morning.”

But Chris vehemently negatived this.  “I don’t want to—­to spoil to-morrow.  I—­I shouldn’t sleep for thinking of it.  Oh, Trevor, let’s settle it now.  I’m going to be sensible—­really.  And—­and—­if you’ll forgive me for all the bad things I’ve done up to to-day I—­I will really try to tell you everything as it happens from now on.  Will you, Trevor?”

She raised pleading, pathetic eyes, still wet with tears.  He could feel her still quivering with the emotion she was striving to subdue.  She was too near in that moment to resist—­perhaps he would not have resisted her in any case; for he had it not in his heart to think ill of her.

“My darling,” he said, “we will leave it at that.  Only—­in the future—­trust me as I am trusting you.”

He turned to the table and closed the cheque-book.  “These debts are my affair.  I will settle them.  Just tell me what they are.”

“Oh, but they are settled!” she told him.  “I promised I would, you know.”

“Then”—­he looked at her—­“someone lent you the money?”

Something in his tone made her shrink again.  She hesitated.

“Chris!” he said.

Nervously she answered him.  “Jack lent me forty pounds.”

“Jack!” he said.  “You weren’t afraid to ask him, then?”

“Oh no!” she said quickly.  “I’m not a bit afraid of Jack.”

“Only of me, Chris!”

She gave herself back to him with a swift, shy movement.  “It’s the fear of vexing you,” she said.  “I don’t mind vexing—­other people.  It’s only you—­only you.  Trevor, say you understand!”

He did not answer her instantly, but the close holding of his arms drove all misgiving from her soul.  He rose to his feet, raising her with him, pressing her to him faster and ever faster till her arms crept round his neck again, and she lay, a willing prisoner, against his heart.

And so holding her, at last he answered her tremulous appeal.  “My darling, never be afraid of vexing me!  Never be afraid that I shall not understand!”

She could not speak in answer.  The wonder of his love for her had stricken her dumb; it had swept upon her like a wave, towering, immense, resistless, bearing her far beyond her depth.

She could only mutely lift her quivering lips; and he, moved to gentleness by her action, took her face between his hands with infinite tenderness, gazing down into her eyes with that in his own which cast out the last of her fear.

“My little Chris!” he said.  “My wife!”

PART II

CHAPTER I