“You will forgive my receiving you like this, Mr. Tavernake?” she begged.  “To-day I have a headache.  I have been anxious for your coming.  You must sit by my side, please, and tell me at once whether you have seen Beatrice.”

Tavernake did exactly as he was bidden.  The chair toward which she had pointed was quite close to the sofa, but there was no other unoccupied in the room.  She raised herself a little on the couch and turned towards him.  Her eyes were fixed anxiously upon his, her forehead slightly wrinkled, her voice tremulous with eagerness.

“You have seen her?”

“I have,” he admitted, looking steadily into the lining of his hat.

“She has been cruel,” Elizabeth declared.  “I can tell it from your face.  You have bad news for me.”

“I do not know,” Tavernake replied, “whether she has been cruel or not.  She refuses to allow me to tell you her address.  She begged me, indeed, to keep away from you altogether.”

“Why?  Did she tell you why?”

“She says that you are her sister, that you have no money of your own and that your husband has left you,” Tavernake answered, deliberately.

“Is that all?”

“No, it is not all,” he continued.  “As to the rest, she told me nothing definite.  It is quite clear, however, that she is very anxious to keep away from you.”

“But her reason?” Elizabeth persisted.  “Did she give you no reason?”

Tavernake looked her in the face.

“She gave me no reason,” he said.

“Do you believe that she is justified in treating me like this?” Elizabeth asked, playing nervously with a pendant which hung from her smooth, bare neck.

“Of course I do,” he replied.  “I am quite sure that she would not feel as she does unless you had been guilty of something very terrible indeed.”

The woman on the couch winced as though some one had struck her.  A more susceptible man than Tavernake must have felt a little remorseful at the tears which dimmed for a moment her beautiful eyes.  Tavernake, however, although be felt a moment’s uneasiness, although he felt himself assailed all the time by a curious new emotion which he utterly failed to understand, was nevertheless still immune.  The things which were to happen to him had not yet, arrived.

“Of course,” he continued, “I was very much disappointed to hear this, because I had hoped that we might have been able to let Grantham House to you.  We cannot consider the matter at all now unless you pay for everything in advance.”

She uncovered her eyes and looked at him.  People so direct of speech as this had come very seldom into her life.  She was conscious of a thrill of interest.  The study of men was a passion with her.  Here was indeed a new type!

“So you think that I am an adventuress,” she murmured.

He reflected for a moment.

“I suppose,” he admitted, “that it comes to that.  I should not have returned at all if I had not promised.  If there is any message which you wish me to give your sister, I will take it, but I cannot tell you her address.”