“I understand.”

“That is more than I do.  Will you please to explain it?”

“You are accurately informed.  Mrs. Elgar came here, naturally enough, to ask if I knew what had become of you.”

“And why should she come to you?”

“Because my letter to you lay open somewhere in your house, and she thought it possible we had been together.”

Elgar reflected.  Yes, he remembered that the letter was left on his table.

“And where did she go afterwards?  Where did you conduct her?”

“I went rather more than half-way home with her, in the cab” replied Mallard, somewhat doggedly.  “I supposed she was going on to Belsize Park.”

“Then you know nothing of her reason for not doing so?”

“Nothing whatever.”

Elgar became silent.  The artist, after moving about quietly, turned to question him with black brows.

“Hasn’t it occurred to you that she may have joined Mrs. Lessingham in the country?”

“She has taken nothing—­not even a travelling-bag.”

“You come, of course, from the Spences’ house?”

Elgar replied with an affirmative.  As soon as he had done so, he remembered that this was as much as corroborating Mallard’s conjecture with regard to Miriam; but for that he cared little.  He had begun to discern something odd in the relations between Miriam and Mallard, and suspected that Cecily might in some way be the cause of it.

“Did they not at once suggest that she was with Mrs. Lessingham?”

Elgar muttered a “No,” averting his face.

“What did they suggest, then?”

“I saw only my sister,” said Reuben, irritably.

“And your sister thought I was the most likely person to know of Mrs. Elgar’s whereabouts?”

“Yes, she did.”

“I am sorry to disappoint you,” said Mallard, coldly.  “I have given you all the information I can.”

“All you will,” replied Elgar, whose temper was exasperated by the firmness with which he was held at a scornful distance.  He began now to imagine that Mallard, from reasons of disinterested friendship, had advised Cecily to seek some retreat, and would not disclose the secret.  More than that, he still found incredible.

Mallard eyed him scornfully.

“I said ‘all I can,’ and I don’t deal in double meanings.  I know nothing more than I have told you.  You are probably unaccustomed, of late, to receive simple and straightforward answers to your questions; but you’ll oblige me by remembering where you are.”

Elgar might rage inwardly, but he had no power of doubting what he heard.  He understood that Mallard would not even permit an allusion to anything save the plain circumstances which had come to light.  Moreover, the artist had found a galling way of referring to the events that had brought about this juncture.  Reuben was profoundly humiliated; he had never seen himself in so paltry a light.  He could have shed tears of angry shame.