“What revenge?”

“The revenge you’re executing at this minute.  He said—­what very few men, thank God, will say of a woman, even when it’s true, and what it takes a dastard to say when it’s not true.  Even in the case of the fallen woman there’s a chivalrous human pity that protects her; while there’s something more than that due to the most foolish of our sex who has not fallen.  I took it for granted that, at the worst, I could count on that, until I met your friend.  His cup of vengeance will be full when he learns that he has given you the power to insult me.”

“I don’t mean to insult you,” he said, in a dogged voice, “but I mean, if possible, to know the truth.”

“I’m not concealing it.  I’m ready to tell you anything.”

“Then, tell me this:  isn’t it the case that when George Eveleth discovered your relations with Bienville, he challenged him?”

“It’s the case that he challenged him, not because of what he discovered, but of what Monsieur de Bienville said.”

“At their encounter, didn’t Bienville fire into the air—?”

“I’ve never heard so.”

“And didn’t George Eveleth fall from a self-inflicted shot?”

“No.  He died at the hand of the Marquis de Bienville.”

“So you told me once before, though you didn’t tell me the man’s name.  But, Diane, aren’t you convinced in your heart that George Eveleth knew that which made his life no longer worth the living?”

“Do you mean that he knew something—­about me?”

“Yes—­about you.”

“That’s the most cruel charge Monsieur de Bienville has invented yet.”

“Suppose he didn’t invent it?  Suppose it was a fact?”

“Have you any purpose in subjecting me to this needless torture?”

“I have a purpose, and I’m sorry if it involves torture; but I assure you it isn’t needless.  I must get to the bottom of this thing.  I’ve asked you to marry me; and I must know if my future wife—­”

“But I’m not—­your future wife.”

“That remains to be seen.  I can come to no decision—­”

“But I can.”

“That must wait.  The point before us is this:  Did, or did not, George Eveleth kill himself?”

“He did not.”

“You must understand that it would prove nothing if he did.”

“It would prove, or go far to prove, what you said just now—­that I had made his life not worth the living.”

“His money troubles may have counted for something in that.  What it would do is this:  it would help to corroborate Bienville’s word against—­yours.”

“Fortunately there are means of proving that I’m right.  I can’t tell you exactly what they are; but I know that, in France, when people die the registers tell just what they died of.”

“I’ve already sent for the necessary information.  I’ve done even more than that.  I couldn’t wait for the slow process of the mails.  I cabled this morning to Grimston, one of my Paris partners, to wire me the cause of George Eveleth’s death, as officially registered.  This is his reply.”