She mustered her forces at length to ask a direct question.  “What do you propose to do with regard to that letter you hold in your hand?”

With a quiet movement he transferred it to his pocket.  “I have not had time to consider the matter,” he said.

She was momentarily surprised, and showed it.  “I thought you would know what to do at once,” she said.  “It was, in fact, my reason for telling you of it.  I felt that something ought to be done—­and quickly.”

“Something will be done,” Mordaunt answered quietly.  “You have placed the matter in my hands, and I shall deal with it.  I think I need not ask you to refrain from mentioning it to anyone else?”

“You need not,” said Aunt Philippa with dignity.

“Thank you.  And that is all you wish to say to me?”

She met his steady eyes for an instant and at once looked away again.  “All,” she replied, “except that I think it was a great pity that you refused so persistently to profit by my former warning.  It might have averted much trouble both for yourself and for Chris.”

He made her a slight bow.  “I fear I am not unique,” he said, “in preferring to conduct my own affairs in my own way.”

When Aunt Philippa took her departure that afternoon it was in a most unwonted state of doubt, not unmingled with apprehension.  Despite his moderation, she had an uneasy feeling that her communication to Trevor Mordaunt had set in motion a devastating force which nothing could arrest or divert until it had spread destruction over all that lay in its path.

CHAPTER VIII

THE TRUTH

In answer to her husband’s low knock, Chris turned from her dressing-table.  She had switched on the electric light, and had taken down her hair, preparatory to dressing for dinner.  It hung all about her in magnificent ripples of ruddy light and shade.  Her face, in the midst of it, looked very small and tired.  She was clad in a plain white wrapper, that fell away from her neck and arms, giving her a very childish appearance.

“Yes, I’m getting up,” she said, with the flicker of a smile.  “I couldn’t sleep.”

He entered and closed the door behind him in silence.

“Has Aunt Philippa gone?” she asked.

He responded briefly, “Three hours ago.”

“Ah!” She stretched out her arms with the gesture of one freed from an irksome burden, but they fell again immediately, almost as if a fresh burden had taken its place.

She stood for a few seconds motionless, looking straight before her.  Finally, with a hint of nervousness, she turned her eyes upon her husband; they shone intensely blue in the strong light.

“We shall soon be quite alone,” she said.

His eyes did not answer hers.  They looked remote and cold.  “Come and sit down,” he said.

He seated himself on the couch from which she had just risen.  Chris caught up a slide from the dressing-table, and fastened back her hair with fingers that trembled inexplicably.