“Not yet.  I’ll tell you everything if you’ll promise not to breathe a word, not to interfere until Henri has a chance to square himself.  I—­think I’ve earned the right to demand that much.  I told you the whole thing was counterfeit—­was the work of Joe McCaskey.  I couldn’t believe Henri was up to such villainy.  He’s dissolute, weak, vain—­anything you choose—­but he’s not voluntarily criminal.  Well, I went to work on him.  I pretended to--” the Countess again shivered with disgust.  “Oh, you saw what I was doing.  I hated myself, but there was no choice.  Things came to a climax last night.  I don’t like to talk about it—­think about it—­but you’re bound to hear.  I consented to go out with him.  He dragged me through the dance-halls and the saloons—­made me drink with him, publicly, and with the scum of the town.”  Noting the expression on her hearer’s face, the Countess laughed shortly, mirthlessly.  “Shocking, wasn’t it?  Low, indecent, wretched?  That’s what everybody is saying.  Dawson is humming with it.  God!  How he humiliated me!  But I loosened his tongue.  I got most of the details—­not all, but enough.  It was late, almost daylight, before I succeeded.  He slept all day, stupefied, and so did I, when I wasn’t too ill.

“He remembered something about it, he had some shadowy recollection of talking too much.  When he woke up he sent for me.  Then we had it.  He denied everything, of course.  He lied and he twisted, but I’m the stronger—­always have been.  I beat him down, as usual.  I could have felt sorry for the poor wretch only for what he had put me through.  He went out not long ago.”

“Where to?  Tell me—­”

“To the Police—­to Colonel Cavendish.  I gave him the chance to make a clean breast of everything and save his hide, if possible.  If he weakens I’ll take the bit in my teeth.”

Rouletta stood motionless for a moment; then in deep emotion she exclaimed:  “I’m so glad!  And yet it must have been a terrible sacrifice.  I think I understand how you must loathe yourself.  It was a very generous thing to do, however.  Not many women could have risen to it.”

“I—­hope he doesn’t make me tell.  I haven’t much pride left, but—­ I’d like to save what remains, for you can imagine what Cavendish will think.  A wife betraying her husband for her—­for another man!  What a story for those women on the hill!”

Impulsively Rouletta bent forward and kissed the speaker.  “Colonel Cavendish will understand.  He’s a man of honor.  But, after all, when a woman really—­cares, there’s a satisfaction, a compensation, in sacrifice, no matter how great.”

Hilda Courteau’s eyes were misty, their dark-fringed lids trembled wearily shut.  “Yes,” she nodded, “I suppose so.  Bitter and sweet!  When a woman of my sort, my age and experience, lets herself really care, she tastes both.  All I can hope is that Pierce never learns what he made me pay for loving him.  He wouldn’t understand--yet.”  She opened her eyes again and met the earnest gaze bent upon her.  “I dare say you think I feel the same toward him as you do, that I want him, that I’m hungry for him.  Well, I’m not.  I’m ’way past that.  I’ve been through fire, and fire purifies.  Now run along, child.  I’m sure everything will come out right.”