Maraton’s face was inscrutable but there was, for a moment, a dangerous flash in his eyes.

“I had some conversation with him this evening.

“What did he want?” Graveling asked bluntly.

Maraton raised his eyebrows.  He turned to the girl.

“Do you know Mr. Graveling?”

The young man scowled.  Julia smiled but there was a shadow of trouble in her face.

“Naturally,” she replied.  “Mr. Graveling and I are fellow workers.”

“Yes, we are that,” the young man declared pointedly, “that and a little more, I hope.  To tell you the truth, I followed Miss Thurnbrein here, and I think she’d have done better to have asked for my escort—­the escort of the man she’s going to marry—­before she came here alone at this time of night.”  Mr. Graveling’s ill-humour was explained.  He was of the order of those to whom the ability to conceal their feelings is not given, and he was obviously in a temper.  Maraton’s face remained impassive.  The girl, however, stood suddenly erect.  There was a vivid spot of colour in her cheeks.

“You had better keep to the truth, Richard Graveling!” she cried fearlessly.  “I have never promised to marry you, or if I have, it was under certain conditions.  You had no right to follow me here.”

The young man opened his lips and closed them again.  He was scarcely capable of speech.  The very intensity of his anger seemed to invest the little scene with a peculiar significance.  The girl had the air of one who has proclaimed her freedom.  The face of the man who glared at her was distorted with unchained passions.  In the background, Maraton stood with tired but expressionless countenance, and the air of one who listens to a quarrel between children, a quarrel in which he has no concern.

“It is not fair,” Julia continued, “to discuss a purely personal matter here.  You can walk home with me if you care to, Richard Graveling, but all that I have to say to you, I prefer to say here.  I never promised to marry you.  You have always chosen to take it for granted, and I have let you speak of it because I was indifferent, because I have never chosen to think of such matters, because my thoughts have been wholly, wholly dedicated to the greatest cause in the world.  To-night you have forced yourself upon me.  You have done yourself harm, not good.  You have surprised the truth in my heart.  It is clear to me that I—­cannot marry you; I never could.  I shall not change.  Now let us go back to our work hand in hand, if you will, but that other matter is closed between us forever.”

She turned to say farewell to Maraton, but Graveling interposed himself between them.  His voice shook and there were evil things in his distorted face.

“To-night, for the first time,” he exclaimed hoarsely, “you speak in this fashion!  Before, even if you were indifferent, marriage at least seemed possible to you.  To-night you say that the truth has come to you.  You look at me with different eyes.  You draw back.  You begin to feel, to understand.  You are a woman to-night!  Why?  Answer me that!  Why?  Why to-night?  Why not before?  Why is it that to-night you have awakened?  I will know!  Look at me.”