“She’s been on duty all night,” observed the guard.  “If you’ve got to speak to her, go ahead.”

“Yes,” said Berkley in a dull voice, “I’ve got to speak to her.”  And he walked toward her across the dead brown grass.

Letty’s head lay on a rough pine table; her slim body, supported by a broken chair, was covered by a faded shawl; and, as he looked down at her, somehow into his memory came the recollection of the first time he ever saw her so—­asleep in Casson’s rooms, her childish face on the table, the room reeking with tobacco smoke and the stale odour of wine and dying flowers.

He stood for a long while beside her, looking down at the thin, pale face.  Then, in pity, he turned away; and at the same moment she stirred, sat up, confused, and saw him.

“Letty, dear,” he said, coming back, both hands held out to her, “I did not mean to rob you of your sleep.”

“Oh—­it doesn’t matter!  I am so glad—­” She sat up suddenly, staring at him.  The next moment the tears rushed to her eyes.

“O—­h,” she whispered, “I wished so to see you.  I am so thankful you are here.  There is—­there has been such—­a terrible change—­something has happened——­”

She rose unsteadily; laid her trembling hand on his arm.

“I don’t know what it is,” she said piteously, “but Ailsa—­something dreadful has angered her against me——­”

“Against you!”

“Oh, yes.  I don’t know all of it; I know—­partly.”

Sleep and fatigue still confused her mind; she pressed both frail hands to her eyes, her forehead: 

“It was the day I returned from seeing you at Paigecourt. . . .  I was deadly tired when the ambulance drove into Azalea; and when it arrived here I had fallen asleep. . . .  I woke up when it stopped.  Ailsa was sitting here—­in this same chair, I think—­and I remember as I sat up in the ambulance that an officer was just leaving her—­Captain Hallam.”

She looked piteously at Berkley.

“He was one of the men I have avoided.  Do you understand?”

“No. . . .  Was he——­”

“Yes, he often came to the—­Canterbury.  He had never spoken to me there, but Ione Carew knew him; and I was certain he would recognise me. . . .  I thought I had succeeded in avoiding him, but he must have seen me when I was not conscious of his presence—­he must have recognised me.”

She looked down at her worn shoes; the tears fell silently; she smoothed her gray gown for lack of employment for her restless hands.

“Dear,” he said, “do you believe he went to Ailsa with his story about you?”

“Oh, yes, yes, I am sure.  What else could it be that has angered her—­that drives me away from her—­that burns me with the dreadful gaze she turns on me—­chills me with her more dreadful silence? . . .  Why did he do it?  I don’t know—­oh, I don’t know. . . .  Because I had never even spoken to him—­in those days that I have tried so hard—­so hard to forget——­”