“You ought to be sorry for me,” he whispered, “not angry.”

She turned her face aside.  “Of course—­that—­would not make me angry.  Only—­only—­you had no right to—­to send me—­a present—­a valuable present.”

“And if I didn’t?” said Noel.

She looked at him in sheer astonishment.  He still held her hand with the packet clasped in it.

“What if I am not the delinquent after all?” he said.

“What do you mean?” Her eyes met his again, wide and incredulous.

“What if I tell you that this packet—­whatever it contains—­did not come from me?”

He asked the question with a faint smile that set some chord of memory vibrating strangely in her soul.  But she could not stop to wrestle with memory then.  His words demanded her instant attention.

“Not come from you!” she repeated, as one dazed.  “But it did!  Surely it did!”

“Most surely it didn’t!” said Noel.

She freed her hand and opened it, gazing at the subject of their discussion almost with fear.  “Mr. Wyndham!”

“Call me Noel!” he said.  “There’s nothing in that.  Everybody does it.  And don’t be upset on my account!  It was a perfectly natural mistake.  I’m deeply in love with you.  But—­all the same—­this present did not come from me.”

“It had your initials,” she said, still only half believing.

“Then it was probably a hoax,” said Noel.

“Oh, no!  That’s not possible.  It—­it—­you see, it’s valuable.”  Olga’s voice was almost piteous.

“I say, don’t mind!” he said.  “It’s just some other fellow’s impudence.  I’ll kick him for you if I get the chance.  You’re quite sure about my initials?”

“Quite,” she said.

“And what else was there?”

She frowned, “Only a Latin motto.”

“Tell me!” he said persuasively.

She continued to frown.  “It was ‘Dum spiro spero.’”

“Great Scott!” he said.  “Do you think I should have been as presumptuous as that?  I should have just said, ‘With Noel’s love,’ and you wouldn’t have had the heart to fling it back again.”

She smiled, not very willingly.  “I can’t understand it at all.”

“I can,” he said boldly.  “I’ve known there was another fellow, ever since the first night I met you.  But I’ve been hoping against hope that he didn’t count.  Does he count then?”

Olga turned sharply from him.  She was suddenly trembling.  “No!” she whispered.

He drew a step nearer to her.  “Olga—­forgive me—­is that the truth?”

She controlled herself and turned back to him.  “There is no one in India who would have sent me this,” she said.  “I can’t account for it—­in any way.  Please forgive me for accusing you of what you haven’t done.  And—­and—­”