It was in his blackest and most grim mood that Hugh Murchison walked to Eaton Place, for the purpose of paying an afternoon call upon Mrs. Spencer. He had not been near her since the night of the dinner, had only left cards. And, very fortunately, he had not come across Guy in the interval.

On that particular night he had reproached himself with indiscretion. He had availed himself of Fairfax's information to tax her with meeting Tommie Esmond at Charing Cross Station on the morning of his flight to the Continent.

And at the moment that he had made that dramatic announcement, the drawing-room door had opened to admit the unsuspecting husband. Hugh had left shortly after dinner, on the plea of another engagement. Had Mrs. Spencer tried to take the wind out of his sails by volunteering some plausible explanation about her meeting with Esmond? She was a clever young woman; she might try to forestall him. On the other hand, she might sit tight till he forced her hand. Anyway, he was going to force it to-day, armed with the new evidence that had been furnished to him.

Mrs. Spencer was not looking well. Her eyes had lost their brightness, her once charming smile was forced and mechanical.

She rose as he was announced, and advanced to him with outstretched hands, with an exaggerated air of cordiality.

"I thought you had forgotten us." She seated herself on the Chesterfield and motioned him to sit beside her. "Major Murchison, I fear I was a little rude to you the other night, you remember, just before Guy came in." She clasped her hands nervously together. "I do trust we are going to be friends."

Hugh looked at her grimly. He had no compassion for this shameless adventuress who had driven the poor foolish Pomfret to his grave, who had ensnared Guy Spencer, a man of stronger fibre, but equally powerless in the hands of an unscrupulous woman.

"Mrs. Spencer—to call you by one of the many names by which you are known—we were not friends the last time I was at this house. To-day we are bitter enemies."

"What do you mean?" she faltered. "You are speaking in riddles. Why should you, the old friend of my husband, be the bitter enemy of his innocent wife?"

"His innocent wife!" repeated Hugh sternly. "Dare you look me in the face and say that my name, even if you fail to recognise me after these years, does not recall to you certain tragic episodes at Blankfield?"

"I know nothing of Blankfield." The voice was low but very unsteady. "You put that question to me the other night in a roundabout sort of way. My answer is the same—I know nothing of Blankfield."

There was a long pause. Hugh continued to look at her with his steady and disconcerting gaze. Suddenly she rose, and paced restlessly up and down the long drawing-room.

"Major Murchison, put your cards on the table. You have come into this house, an old friend of my husband's; I have done my best to make you welcome. But you have some spite against me. Of what do you accuse me?"

"I will put my cards on the table," answered Hugh in his inflexible voice. "On the night I met you at Carlton House Terrace I had my suspicions; no two women could be so exactly alike. Since that night I have been picking up information here and there. I have now got a complete chain of evidence."

"Evidence of what?" she gasped, still pursuing her restless walk up and down the room. "Of my having met Tommie Esmond at Charing Cross Station? would you like to hear the true history of that?"

"I shall be pleased to hear any explanation you like to offer, with the reservation that I must please myself as to whether I accept it or not."

"You are very hard, Major Murchison. As you are not prepared to believe me, perhaps it would be better if I did not embark on this history. But Tommie Esmond is really my uncle, my mother's brother. When I was in low water he was very kind to me. I could not turn my back on him in his distress." She spoke with sudden passion. "Of course, you, with your pharisaical way of looking at things, would say I should have forgotten all his previous kindness."

"The Tommie Esmond affair is, comparatively, a trivial one, Mrs. Spencer. I am coming in a moment to graver issues. You still say that the name of Murchison conveys nothing to you. Oh, think well before you answer! Remember, I have told you I have overwhelming evidence. And, believe me, the task I have set out upon is far from a welcome one."

"I still say that the name of Murchison conveys nothing to me." She spoke with a certain air of assurance, but he could see that she was quivering all over.

"Carry your memory back to that night at Blankfield when your so-called brother, George Burton, was arrested on a charge of forgery. You had been his decoy and accomplice in a gambling saloon in Paris. You had inveigled my poor friend, Jack Pomfret, into a clandestine marriage a few days before. Jack, unable to survive his folly and disgrace, blew his brains out. If not in the eyes of the law, you were, morally, a murderess."

"You are mad, raving mad!" she cried, but her voice seemed strangled as she made the bold denial.

"Not mad, Mrs. Spencer, but very sane, as I will show you in a few seconds. As I told you, I recognised you that night at the South-leigh dinner-party, in spite of the pains you had taken to camouflage yourself. But I waited for corroborative evidence. The detective who arrested your so-called brother, George Burton, has seen you and is prepared to swear to your identity as Norah Burton."

Then suddenly she gave way, fell on her knees before him, and stretched out appealing hands.

"Oh, you are very clever; I see you have found it all out. But you will be merciful, you will not drive an unhappy woman to despair, just when she has got into safe harbour. Will you be kind enough to listen to my miserable history?"

"I will listen to anything you have got to say."

"My childhood and girlhood were most wretched and unhappy. At a time when most girls are tasting the sweets and joys of life, I had to live by my wits. I fell under the influence of a good-natured, but very wicked man."

"In other words, George Burton?" queried Hugh.

"In other words, George Burton," she repeated in the low, strangled voice that did not move Hugh very much. "I was starving when he met me and took me up. He was genuinely sorry for me. Mind you, I knew nothing of his nefarious schemes. He hid those very carefully away from me."

"But you were his decoy, if not his confederate, in the gambling saloon in Paris?"

"His decoy, perhaps, unconsciously, but never his confederate."

"And when did Tommie Esmond appear on the scene?" queried Hugh.

"Oh, much later. George got into low water and had not enough for himself. I then hunted up my uncle, who received me with open arms."

Hugh was developing the instincts of a crossexaminer. "And Tommie Esmond, I suppose, introduced you to the card-sharping crew at the Elsinore flat, and you were launched as the cousin of Mrs. L'Estrange, who presided over this delectable establishment?"

"I was a distant cousin of Mrs. L'Estrange on my dear mother's side," was the answer.

She was lying terribly, he felt assured. But he had a card or two up his sleeve yet. Still, it was wise to see how far she would go.

"And when did you part with the so-called brother, George Burton?"

"Oh, very shortly after he came out of prison. I had one interview with him; I could not do less after his kindness to me. And in the meantime I had hunted up poor old Tommie Esmond."

"And what did you do after that night at Blankfield? I think you cleared out the next day. I heard you had paid everything up."

"Thank Heaven, yes. There was just a little money left. My life after that was a nightmare. Amongst other humiliations, I was a waitress in a tea-shop." A smile of vanity broke over the charming face. "The wages were very small, but I got a lot of tips." Perhaps in this particular instance she was not lying, if it was true that she had been in a tea-shop at all.

There was a little pause, and then Murchison spoke in his stern, inflexible voice:

"And how long is it since you saw George Burton?"

She had answered the question before, but he was hoping to entrap her into some unguarded admission. He could see that she was considerably thrown oft her balance, clever and ready as she was, by the extent of his knowledge.

"I told you just now, soon after he came out of prison."

And then Hugh rose in his wrath. And then she, seeing in his face that he had another and a stronger card to play, got up from her kneeling position and watched him with an agonised countenance.

"I am sorry to use such harsh words to a woman, even such a woman as you are, Mrs. Spencer. But when you say that you are lying miserably, and you know it as well as I do." Her face went livid. She assumed a tone of indignation, but her voice died away in a sob. "How dare you say that?"

"I am not the sort of man to make a statement unless I can prove it up to the hilt. Your so-called cousin, George Dutton, keeps a bucket-shop in the City; from certain evidence in my possession, I should say it was not a very paying business."

Stella did not attempt to reply to this last shot, but she recognised that he had gone about the business very thoroughly.

"George Dutton, the bucket-shop keeper, is George Burton, the forger, come to life again, still, I take it, on the same criminal tack, perhaps in a lesser degree. Do you admit," he cried vehemently, "that George Burton and George Dutton are one and the same?"

"Yes, since you seem to have proof, I admit it," was the somewhat sullen answer.

"That is as well; it clears the ground, up to a certain point. You say you parted from Burton soon after his release from prison, and have not seen him since. When was that—how long ago? You met him frequently as George Dutton at Elsinore Gardens."

The courage of despair seemed to come to her, and she ceased to tremble. "I will answer no more questions. Tell me what you allege and I will admit or deny. Of course, you have employed a detective; you have had me watched."

"Of course. I should not presume to cope single-handed with a clever woman like yourself. You have met George Dutton, alias George Burton, four times within the last fortnight at obscure restaurants in the City, and there is a strong presumption that you were handing to him envelopes containing money."

She seemed now to recognise that the game was up. Her self-possession returned to her. She sat down, and motioned to him to seat himself.

"You are much too clever for me, Major Murchison. You have handled the matter very well, so well that you have turned your vague suspicions into absolute certainty. Well, what action are you going to take? As a matter of course, you intend to turn me out of my husband's house?"

"If not at the moment, very speedily. You will admit, I think, with your clever brain, that you should not remain under the roof of such an honourable English, gentleman as he is a day longer than necessary."

"I will admit it, from your point of view, if you like. Oh, believe me, I can see your side," replied this remarkable young woman. "But you will forgive me, Major Murchison, if I say that, from my point of view, I would have preferred that you had never been born. Guy is very happy; he believes in me and trusts me. It will be a great blow to him as to me."

"I know. I wish it were in my power to spare him this misery. But, in common honesty, I cannot."

"And have you thought of what is to become of me when I am turned out of my husband's house?" she inquired in a composed voice. Her adroit mind had evidently adapted itself to the altered circumstances, and was now busied in turning them, as far as possible, to her own advantage.

"You have George Dutton to fall back upon, also Tommie Esmond," was Murchison's retort.

She snapped her fingers in a fashion that was almost vulgar, and she was so free from vulgar actions.

"George is thankful that I can, from time to time, fling him a ten-pound note; his luck has deserted him. Tommie Esmond, I believe, saved a bit out of the wreck, but he has not more than enough to keep body and soul together."

"Guy is not a man to behave ungenerously, however deeply he has been wronged," said Hugh, after he had reflected a few moments. He added more hesitatingly, "And if Guy should take an obdurate attitude, it is possible I might come to your assistance. I have hunted you down, but I do not want to drive you into the gutter."

"But a man must support his wife, even if her past has not been quite so respectable as it might have been," she cried defiantly.

Hugh directed upon her a searching look. "Mrs. Spencer, it is in my mind that you may not be Guy's wife after all. If I probed a little deeper, I might get at your real relations with this George Dutton, or rather Burton."

"Oh, this time you are really pursuing a will-o'-the-wisp, I assure you. George has never been anything to me but brother or cousin, as the occasion demanded."

She paused a second, and there was a terrified look in her eyes as she added, "But even if your suspicions were correct, which they are not, you would not go back from your own promise. If Guy proved obdurate, you would not drive me to the gutter. You promised me that."

"I shall keep my promise, Mrs. Spencer, and I will give it you in writing, if you wish."

"It would be as well. And you will want something from me in writing also, I expect," she concluded shrewdly.

"Certainly I shall," said Hugh steadily. "I shall draw up a full confession for you to sign, to prevent you from ever troubling your husband again—if, as I suggested just now, he is your husband."

Mrs. Spencer rose. It seemed that there was a sense of relief in the fact that the interview was ending so amicably.

"I would have preferred to remain as I am, but, on the whole, the life doesn't suit me, luxurious as it is. I am very fond of Guy really, he has been so good to me, but I have alienated him from his friends. And I have to sit here hour after hour by myself, with only my thoughts for company."

"Let us say one week from now I will have that confession ready to sign."

"And you will bring it here?" suggested Stella.

"I think not. It will take some time to read through, and we might be interrupted," was Hugh's answer.

"At your hotel, then, I suppose?" was the young woman's next suggestion.

"The same objection applies."

He scribbled down an address on a piece of paper. "Meet me there this day week at the hour I have appointed. Nobody will interrupt us, I will take care of that."

And Mrs. Spencer lay awake half the night, working out a problem that had suggested itself to her in a flash.

The next day she lunched with George Dutton in the City. The detective might be watching her, but did it matter? whatever happened at the end of the week, she had burned her boats.