He was gone but for three minutes.  Meanwhile, I buried my face in my burning hands, and cried to myself in unspeakable misery.

For, horrible as it sounds to say so, I knew perfectly well now that Jack was Dr. Ivor:  yet, in spite of that knowledge, I loved him still.  He was my father’s murderer; and I couldn’t help loving him!

It was that that filled up the cup of my misery to overflowing.  I loved the man well:  and I must turn to denounce him.

He came back, flushed and hot, expecting thanks for his pains.

“Well, she’ll get you the lemon, Una,” he said, panting.  “I overtook her by the big tulip-tree.”

I gazed at him fixedly, taking my hands from my face, with the tears still wet on my burning cheek.

“You’ve deceived me!” I cried sternly.  “Jack, you’ve given me a false name.  I know who you are, now.  You’re no Jack at all.  You’re Courtenay Ivor!”

He drew back, quite amazed.  Yet he didn’t seem thunderstruck.  Not fear but surprise was the leading note on his features.

“So you’ve found that out at last, Una!” he exclaimed, staring hard at me.  “Then you remember me after all, darling!  You know who I am.  You haven’t quite forgotten me.  And you recall what has gone, do you?”

I rose from the sofa, ill as I was, in my horror.

“You dare to speak to me like that, sir!” I cried.  “You, whom I’ve tracked out to your hiding-place and discovered!  You, whom I’ve come across the ocean to hunt down!  You, whom I mean to give up this very day to Justice!  Let me go from your house at once!  How dare you ever bring me here?  How dare you stand unabashed before the daughter of the man you so cruelly murdered?”

He drew back like one stung.

“The daughter of the man I murdered!” he faltered out slowly, as in a turmoil of astonishment.  “The man I murdered!  Oh, Una, is it possible you’ve forgotten so much, and yet remember me myself?  I can’t believe it, darling.  Sit down, my child, and think.  Surely, surely the rest will come back to you gradually.”

His calmness unnerved me.  What could he mean by these words?  No actor on earth could dissemble like this.  His whole manner was utterly unlike the manner of a man just detected in a terrible crime.  He seemed rather to reproach me, indeed, than to crouch; to be shocked and indignant.

“Explain yourself,” I said coldly, in a very chilly voice.  “Courtenay Ivor, I give you three minutes to explain.  At the end of that time, if you can’t exonerate yourself, I walk out of this house to give you up, as I ought, to the arm of Justice!”

He looked at me, all pity, yet inexpressibly reproachful.

“Oh, Una,” he cried, clasping his hands—­those small white hands of his—­Aunt Emma’s hands—­the murderer’s hands—­how had I never before noticed them?—­“and I, who have suffered so much for you!  I, who have wrecked my whole life for you, ungrudgingly, willingly!  I, who have sacrificed even Elsie’s happiness and Elsie’s future for you!  This is too, too hard!  Una, Una, spare me!”