‘Be honest with me,’ she suddenly exclaimed.  ’Had you rather I didn’t come?’

‘No, no!  I can’t live without you—­’

’But, if that is true, why haven’t you the courage to let every one know it?  In your heart you must think that we are acting wrongly.’

’I don’t!  I believe, as you do, that love is the only true marriage.  Very well!’ He made a desperate gesture.  ’Let us defy all consequences.  For your sake—­’

His exaggerated vehemence could not deceive Monica.

‘What is it,’ she asked, ‘that you most fear?’

He began to babble protestations, but she would not listen to them.

‘Tell me—­I have every right to ask—­what you most fear?’

’I fear nothing if you are with me.  Let my relatives say and think what they like.  I have made great sacrifices for them; to give up you would be too much.’

Yet his distress was evident.  It strained the corners of his mouth, wrinkled his forehead.

’The disgrace would be more than you could bear.  You would never see your mother and your sisters again.’

’If they are so prejudiced, so unreasonable, I can’t help it.  They must—­’

He was interrupted by a loud rat-tat at the outer door.  Blanched herself, Monica saw that her lover’s face turned to ghastly pallor.

‘Who can that be?’ he whispered hoarsely.  ‘I expect no one.’

‘Need you answer?’

‘Can it be—?  Have you been followed?  Does any one suspect—?’

They stared at each other, still half-paralysed, and stood waiting thus until the knock was repeated impatiently.

‘I daren’t open,’ Bevis whispered, coming close to her, as if on the impulse of seeking protection—­for to offer it was assuredly not in his mind.  ‘It might be—­’

‘No!  That’s impossible.’

’I daren’t go to the door.  The risk is too frightful.  He will go away, whoever it is, if no one answers.’

Both were shaking in the second stage of terror.  Bevis put his arm about Monica, and felt her heart give great throbs against his own.  Their passion for the moment was effectually quenched.

’Listen!  That’s the clink of the letter-box.  A card or something has been put in.  Then it’s all right.  I’ll wait a moment.’

He stepped to the door of the room, opened it without sound, and at once heard footsteps descending the stairs.  In the look which he cast back at her, a grin rather than a smile, Monica saw something that gave her a pang of shame on his behalf.  On going to the letter-box he found a card, with a few words scribbled upon it.

‘Only one of our partners!’ he exclaimed gleefully.  ’Wants to see me to-night.  Of course he took it for granted I was out.’

Monica was looking at her watch.  Past five o’clock.

‘I think I must go,’ she said timidly.

‘But what are our arrangements?  Do you still intend—­’