He gazed at her in utter silence, and the brooding eyes returned his gaze unflinchingly.

“Good God!”

The words burst from him at last in a low, tense whisper, and, as if the sound broke some spell that had been holding both the man and woman motionless, Elisabeth stepped across the threshold and came towards him.

Trent made a swift gesture—­almost, it seemed, a gesture of aversion.

“Why have you come here?” he demanded hoarsely.

She drew a little nearer, then paused, her hand resting on the table, and looked at him with a strange, questioning expression in her eyes.

“This is a poor welcome, Maurice,” she observed at last.

He winced sharply at the sound of the name by which she had addressed him, then, recovering himself, faced her with apparent composure.

“I have no welcome for you,” he said in measured tones.  “Why should I have?  All that was between us two . . . ended . . . half a life-time ago.”

“No!” she cried out.  “No!  Not all!  There is still my son’s happiness to be reckoned.”

“Your son’s happiness?” He stared at her amazedly.  “What has your son’s happiness to do with me?”

“Everything!” she answered.  “Everything!  Sara Tennant is the woman he loves.”

“And have you come here to blame me for the fact that she does not return his love?”—­with an accent of ironical amusement.

“No, I don’t blame you.  But if it had not been for you she would have married him.  They were engaged, and then”—­her voice shook a little—­“you came!  You came—­and robbed Tim of his happiness.”

Trent smiled sarcastically.

“An instance of the grinding of the mills of God,” he said lightly.  “You robbed me—­you’ll agree?—­of something I valued.  And now—­inadvertently—­I have robbed you in return of your son’s happiness.  It appears”—­consideringly—­“an unusually just dispensation of Providence.  And the sins of the parents are visited on the child, as is the usual inscrutable custom of such dispensations.”

Elisabeth seemed to disregard the bitter gibe his speech contained.  She looked at him with steady eyes.

“I want you—­out of the way,” she said deliberately.

“Indeed?” The indifferent, drawling tone was contradicted by the sudden dangerous light that gleamed in the hazel eyes.  “You mean you want me—­to pay—­once more?”

She looked away uneasily, flushing a little.

“I’m afraid it does amount to that,” she admitted.

“And how would you suggest it should be done?” he inquired composedly.

Her eyes came back to his face.  There was an eager light in them, and when she spoke the words hurried from her lips in imperative demand.

“Oh, it would be so easy, Maurice!  You have only to convince Sara that you are not fit to marry her—­or any woman, for that matter!  Tell her what your reputation is—­tell her why you can never show yourself amongst your fellow men, why you live here under an assumed name.  She won’t want to marry you when she knows these things, and Tim would have his chance to win her back again.”