“She did, alone in the garden of Rosemary Villa.  Sir Charles behaved splendidly.  ‘All right, my dear; some day you’ll tell me, perhaps,’ he said to her.  ‘Meanwhile, I’ll possess my soul in patience.’  So while he smoked in the cab, we talked it over.”  An instant he regarded John Steele as if inviting him to look behind these mere words; but John Steele’s half-averted face appeared set, uncommunicative.  Perhaps again he saw the girl as he had last seen her at Strathorn House; her features, alive, alight, with scorn and wounded pride.

“Well?” he said shortly.  “And the upshot of it all was—­”

“She suggested my going to Lord Ronsdale.”

“To invoke his assistance, perhaps!” Steele once more laughed.  “As an old friend!” Captain Forsythe started to speak; the other went on:  “Well, we’ll keep his secret, as long as he keeps his compact.”

“But—­”

“I promised.  What does it matter?  Sir Charles may be disappointed at not being able to bring about—­But for her sake—­that is the main consideration.”

“And you, the question of your own innocence—­to her?” Forsythe looked at him narrowly, smiled slightly to himself.

“Is—­inconsequential!  The main point is—­the ’Frisco Pet is dead.  Gillett won’t speak; you won’t; Lord Ronsdale can’t.  Another to whom I am about to tell the story, will, I am sure, be equally silent.”

“Another?  You don’t mean to say you are deliberately going to—­” Captain Forsythe frowned; a bell rang.

John Steele smiled.  “Can you think of no one to whom I am bound to tell the truth, the whole truth?  Who extended me his hand in friendship, invited me to his home?  Of course it would be easier to go without speaking; it is rather difficult to own that one has accepted a man’s hospitality, stepped beneath his roof and sat at his board, as—­not to mince words—­an impostor.  I could have delegated you—­to tell him all; but that wouldn’t do.  It is probably a part of the old, old debt; but I must meet him face to face; so I have sent for—­”

A servant opened the door of the library; Sir Charles Wray walked in.

* * * * *

Below, in the cab, Jocelyn waited; her pale face expressed restlessness; her eyes, deep and shining, were bent on the river, fixed unseeingly on a small boat that struggled, struggled almost in vain, against the current.  Then they lowered to something she held in her hand, a bit of crumpled paper.  It was John Steele’s note to Sir Charles asking him to call; stating nothing beyond a mere perfunctory request to that end, giving no reason for his wish to see him.

Her eyes lingered on the message; beneath the bright golden hair, her brows drew together.  The handwriting was in the least unlike his, not quite so bold and firm as that she remembered in one or two messages from him to her—­some time ago.  But then he had been ill, Captain Forsythe had told her, and was still, he thought, far from well.