“I am sorry to have kept you waiting,” she said, extending a lifeless hand.

I raised it to my lips.

“I would have gladly waited all day to see you, Judith,” I said.

“Really?”

She laughed in an odd way.

“And idle speech from me to you at the present time would be an outrage,” I answered.  “I have passed through much since I saw you last.”

“So have I,” said Judith.  “More than you imagine.  Well,” she continued as I bowed my head accepting the rebuke, “what have you got so important to tell me?”

“Much,” said I.  “In the first place you must be aware of what has happened, for I can’t help seeing there a letter from Pasquale.”

She glanced swiftly at the desk and back again at me.

“Yes,” she replied, “he is in Paris.”

I was amazed at her nonchalance.

“Has he told you nothing?”

“Perhaps Sir Marcus Ordeyne would like to see his letter,” she said, ironically.

“You know perfectly well that I would not read it,” said I.

Judith laughed again, and rolled her handkerchief into a little ball between her nervous fingers.

“Forgive me,” she said.  “I like to see the grand seigneur in you now and then.  It puts me in mind of happier days.  But about Pasquale—­the only thing he tells me is that he is not able to execute a commission for me.  He told me on the night he drove me home that he was going to Paris, and I asked him to get me some cosmetic.  Carmine Badouin, if you want to know.  I have got to rouge now before I am fit to be seen in the street.  I am quite frank about it.”

“Then you know nothing of Carlotta?” I cried.

“Carlotta?”

“She eloped with that double-dyed, damned, infernal villain, the day after I saw you.”

Judith looked at me for a moment, then closed her eyes and turned her head away, resting her hand on the table.  My indignation waxed hot against the scoundrel.  How dare he write casual letters to Judith about Carmine Badouin with his treachery on his conscience?  I know the terms of flippant grace in which the knave couched this precious epistle.  And I could see Carlotta reading over his shoulder and clapping her hands and cooing:  “Oh, that is so funny!”

When I had told Judith the outlines of the story, pacing up and down the little room while she remained motionless by the table, she put out her hand to me, and in a low voice, and with still averted eyes said that she was sorry, deeply sorry.  Her tone rang so true and loyal that my heart throbbed with quick appreciation of her high nature, and I wrung her outstretched hand.

“God bless you, Judith,” I cried, fervently.  “Bless you for your sweet sympathy.  Be sorry for me only as for a man who has passed through the horrors of delirium.  But for me as I stand before you now, I ask you not to be sorry.  I have come to bring you, if I can, dear Judith, a measure of gladness, perhaps of happiness.”