"
"Yes," she said; "I see."
"One or two," he continued, "betrayed themselves. They showed that there
was that in them which no one had suspected. I lost one friend that way."
"How?"
It was marvellous how the merest details of India interested this woman,
who, like most of us, did not know herself. Moreover, she never learnt to
do so thoroughly, thereby being spared the horrid pain of knowing oneself
too late.
"I made a mistake," he explained. "I thought he was a gentleman and a
brave man. I found that he was a coward and a cad."
Something urged her to go on with her pointless questions--the same
inevitable Fate which, according to the Italians, "stands at the end of
everything," and which had prompted Mr. Hethbridge to bring this stranger
into the drawing-room.
"But how did you find it out?"
"Oh, I did not do it all at once. I first began by a mere trifle. It
happened that this man was reported dead in the Gazette--I showed it to
him myself."
The young officer, who was not accustomed to ladies' society, and felt
rather nervous at his own loquaciousness, kept his eyes fixed on his
boots, and did not notice the deathly pallor of Mrs.
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