“Pshaw!” says he.  “What has Marian got to do with it?  Marian never cared that about me.”  He makes an expressive movement with his fingers—­a little snap.  “I know now that Marian only played with me.  I amused her.  I was the plaything of an hour.”

“You wrong her there, Maurice.”

“Do I?  How?  They tell us”—­with a bitter smile—­“that if a woman loves a man she will cling to him through all things—­poverty, ill-repute, even crime.  But poverty, the least of these things, daunted her."

“She had known so much poverty——­”

“Are you pleading her cause now?” says Maurice, with a slight smile.  “You plead it badly.  The very fact of her knowing it so well should not have deterred her from trying it again with the man she loved.  I offered to throw up everything for her, to go abroad, to work, to wrestle with fortune for her sake, but she——­” He stops, and draws a long breath.  “Well, it is over,” says he.

“That is.  But your future life——­”

“I’m not a favourite of gods, am I?” says he, laughing.  “My future life!  Well, I leave it to them.  So Tita is looking well?”

“Yes; quite well.  A little pale, I said.”

“She never had much colour.  She never speaks of me, I suppose?”

“Sometimes—­yes.”

Rylton looks down at the carpet, and then laughs a little awkwardly.

“I expect I had better not inquire into it,” says he.  “It is a general remark, yet it is all question.”

“Of course, she remembers things,” says Margaret nervously.

If he were to make another scene, to prance up and down the room, and talk at the top of his lungs, there is no knowing what may not happen, considering who is standing behind those folding-doors.

“We can all remember things,” says Sir Maurice, rising and holding out his hand.  He bids her good-bye.  As he gets to the door he looks back.  “Tell her I didn’t like to keep her in durance vile longer than was necessary,” says he.

With this parting shot, he goes down the stairs and out of the house.

CHAPTER XXI.

HOW MARGARET MAKES A FEARFUL DISCOVERY; HOW SHE RUSHES TO THE RESCUE, BUT IS FAR FROM WELL RECEIVED; AND HOW TITA GIVES HERSELF AWAY, NOT ONCE, BUT TWICE.

Margaret, with a keen sense of relief, goes to the folding-doors, opens them cautiously, and looks in.  A distinctly cold and cutting air greets her; she is aware at once that she is standing in a thorough draught.  And where is Tita?

Good gracious! where can she have gone to?  There is no exit from this room save through the next, where she and Rylton have been sitting—­except by the chimney, or through one of the windows.  For one awful moment it occurs to Miss Knollys that Tita might have flung herself out of a window.

She glances hurriedly to the window nearest her, and then sees something that makes her heart stand still.