“In what have I exaggerated?” she demanded.

“Why, I knew Larrabee Harman,” he returned.  “I knew him fairly well.  I went as far as Honolulu with him, when he and some of his heelers started round the world; and I remember that papers were served on him in San Francisco.  Mrs. Harman had made her application; it was just before he sailed.  About a year and a half or two years later I met him again, in Paris.  He was in pretty bad shape; seemed hypnotised by this Mariana and afraid as death of her; she could go into a tantrum that would frighten him into anything.  It was a joke—­down along the line of the all-night dancers and cafes—­that she was going to marry him; and some one told me afterward that she claimed to have brought it about.  I suppose it’s true; but there is no question of his having married her in good faith.  He believed that the divorce had been granted; he’d offered no opposition to it whatever.  He was travelling continually, and I don’t think he knew much of what was going on, even right around him, most of the time.  He began with cognac and absinthe in the morning, you know.  For myself, I always supposed the suit had been carried through; so did people generally, I think.  He’ll probably have to stand trial, and of course he’s technically guilty, but I don’t believe he’d be convicted—­ though I must say it would have been a most devilish good thing for him if he could have been got out of France before la Mursiana heard the truth.  Then he could have made terms with her safely at a distance—­ she’d have been powerless to injure him and would have precious soon come to time and been glad to take whatever he’d give her.  Now, I suppose, that’s impossible, and they’ll arrest him if he tries to budge.  But this talk of prison and all that is nonsense, my dear Elizabeth!”

“You admit there is a chance of it!” she retorted.

“I’ve said all I had to say,” returned Mr. Ingle with a dubious laugh.  “And if you don’t mind, I believe I’ll wait for you outside, in the machine.  I want to look at the gear-box.”

He paused, as if in deference to possible opposition, and, none being manifested, went hastily from the room with a sigh of relief, giving me, as he carefully closed the door, a glance of profound commiseration over his shoulder.

Miss Elizabeth had taken her brother’s hand, not with the effect of clinging for sympathy; nor had her throwing her arms about him produced that effect; one could as easily have imagined Brunhilda hiding her face in a man’s coat-lapels.  George’s sister wept, not weakly:  she was on the defensive, but not for herself.

“Does the fact that he may possibly escape going to prison”—­she addressed her cousin—­“make his position less scandalous, or can it make the man himself less detestable?”

Mrs. Harman looked at her steadily.  There was a long and sorrowful pause.

“Nothing is changed,” she said finally; her eyes still fixed gravely on Miss Elizabeth’s.