“Think of my not waking!” Michael exclaimed.  “If only I had—­you would never have been allowed to go—­it is maddening to remember what that sleep cost—­but how did you manage at the hotel?”

“It was after five o’clock and the side door was open into the yard.  Not a soul saw me, and I carried out my original plan.  I think when I was in the train I had already begun to regret bitterly, but it was too late to go back—­and then next day your letter came to me at Mr. Parsons’ and all my pride was up in arms!”

Here Michael held her very tight.

“Oh, what a brute I was to write that letter,” he cried.

“All I wanted then was to go away and forget all about you and everything and have lots of nice clothes and join my friend Moravia in Paris.  You see, I was still just a silly ignorant child.  Mr. Parsons got me a good maid who is with me still, and he agreed at last to my taking the name of Howard—­I thought if I kept the Arranstoun everyone would know.”

“But what did you intend to do, darling, with your life.  We were both crazy, of course, you to go—­and I to let you.”

“I had no concrete idea.  Just to see the world and buy what I wanted, and sit up late—­and not have to obey any rules, I think—­and underneath there was a great excitement all the time in the thought of looking perfectly splendid in being a grand grown-up lady when you came back—­for of course I believed then that we must meet again.”

“Well, what changed all that and made you become engaged to Henry, you wicked little thing!” and Michael kissed her fondly—­“Was it because I did not come back?—­but you could have cabled to me at any time.”

An enchanting confusion crept over Sabine—­she hesitated—­she began to speak, then stopped and finally buried her face in his coat.

“What is it, darling?” he asked with almost a tone of anxiety in his voice.  “Did you have some violent flirtation with someone at this stage? and you think I shall be annoyed—­but indeed I shall not, because I do fully realize that whatever you did was my fault for leaving you alone—­Tell me, Sabine, you sweet child.”

“No—­it wasn’t that——­”

“Well—­then?”

“Well—­then I was—­terrified—­it was my old maid, Simone, who told me what had happened—­I was still too ignorant to understand things.”

“Told you what?  What wretched story did the old woman invent about me?” Michael’s eyes were haughty—­that she could listen to stories from a maid!

Sabine clasped her hands together—­she was deeply moved.

“Oh, Michael—­you are stupid!  How can I possibly tell you—­if you won’t understand.”

Then she jumped up suddenly and swiftly brought her blue-despatch box from beside her writing-table and unlocked it with her bracelet key—­while Michael with an anxious, puzzled face watched her intently.  She sat down again beside him when she had found what she sought—­the closed blue leather case which she had looked at so many times.