“I wonder how he learned that,” Hilda said.  “It is not a creed that most men hold.”

“But Bertie is not like most men.”  Very softly came Chris’s answer, and through her tears her eyes shone with the light that is kindled by nothing earthly.  “Bertie has come through a great deal of suffering,” she said.  “It has taught him to know the good from the bad.  And—­he said I shouldn’t be ruined for his sake.  As if I cared for that!” she ended, smiling wanly.

“Thank God he did for you!” Hilda said.

“Oh, do you think it matters?” said Chris.

CHAPTER II

A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

It was a dark, wet night.  The rain streamed from the gutters and pattered desolately on the pavement below.  It had rained for hours.

Trevor Mordaunt sat alone, with a pipe between his teeth, his windows flung wide to the empty street, and listened to the downpour.  He had arrived in town that afternoon to make a few necessary arrangements before leaving England.  These arrangements completed, there was nothing left to do but to await the next morning for departure.

It was not easy, that waiting.  He faced it with grim fortitude, realizing the futility of going to bed.  It was possible that he might presently doze in his chair, but ordinary sleep was out of the question, and he would not trouble himself to court it.  Tossing all night sleepless on his pillow was a refinement of torture that he did not feel called upon to bear.

He had spent the previous night tramping the country-side, but he could not tramp in London, and though he was not aware of fatigue, he knew the necessity for bodily rest existed, and he compelled himself to take it.

So he sat motionless, listening to the rain, while the hours crawled by.

The roar of London traffic rose from afar, for the night was still.  Now and then a taxi whirred through the sloppy street, but there were few wayfarers.  Once a boy passed whistling, and the man at the window above stiffened a little, as if in some fashion the careless melody stirred him, but as the whistler turned the corner he relaxed again with his head back, and resumed his attitude of waiting.

It was nearly midnight when a taxi hummed up to the flaring lamp-post before the house, and stopped to discharge its occupant.  Mordaunt heard the vehicle, but his eyes were closed and he did not trouble to open them.  He had laid aside his pipe, and actually seemed to be on the verge of dozing at last.  The window-curtain screened him from the view of any in the street, and it did not occur to him that the new arrival could be in any way connected with himself.

It was, therefore, with a hint of surprise that he turned his head at the opening of the door.

“Mr. Wyndham to see you, sir,” said Holmes.  “Says it’s very particular, sir.”

“Who?  Oh, all right.  Show him in.”  A bored note sounded in Mordaunt’s voice.  “And you needn’t sit up, Holmes.  I’ll let him out,” he added.