But for the first time in her life she resisted him.  She drew away from him.  She almost pushed him from her.

“Five hundred pounds!” she said, speaking through white lips.  She was shivering violently from head to foot.  “But—­but—­what should Bertie want with five hundred pounds?”

“I didn’t inquire what he did with it.”  Mordaunt’s answer came with implacable sternness.  “I haven’t the least curiosity on that point.  It is enough for me that he took it.”

“Oh, Trevor, how hard you are!” The words rushed out like the cry of a hurt creature, and suddenly Chris’s hands were on his shoulders, and her face, pinched and desperate, looked closely into his.  “You have so much—­so much!” she wailed.  “You don’t know what temptation is!”

He rose to his feet instantly and lifted her to hers.  She was sobbing terribly, but without tears.  He held her to him, supporting her.

“Chris, Chris!” he said.  “Don’t, child, don’t!  I know what this means to you.  It means a good deal to me too, more than you realize.  But for Heaven’s sake let us stand together over it.  Let us be reasonable.”

There was strong appeal in his voice; for in that moment, though he held her to his heart, he knew that the gulf between them had suddenly begun to widen.  He saw the danger in a flash of intuition, but he was powerless to avert it.  They viewed the matter from opposite standpoints.  Did they not view all matters moral thus?  She could condone what he could only condemn, and because of this she deemed him hard and feared him.

He bent his face to hers as he held her.  His lips moved against her forehead.  “Chris,” he said softly, “don’t cry, dear!  Listen to me.  I’m not going to punish him.  He will have to go of course.  As a matter of fact, he meant to do so in any case.  But it will go no further than that.  There will be no prosecution.”

She turned her face up quickly, and he saw that her eyes were dry, though her breathing was spasmodic.  “You couldn’t prosecute an innocent man,” she said.  “And he is innocent.  I know he is innocent.  You say he didn’t deny it.  It was because he wouldn’t stoop to deny it.  He knew you would never believe him if he did.”

The words came fast and passionate.  She drew back from him to utter them, and for the first time he read a challenge in her desperate eyes.

He let her go out of his arms.  He had tried to bridge the gulf, but the distance was too great.  His tenderness only gave her courage to defy him.

With a stifled sigh he abandoned the conflict.  “As I said before, there is no question of his guilt,” he said, with quiet emphasis.  “Far from denying it, he even announced his intention of restoring what he had taken.  That, of course, is also out of the question.  He will probably never be in a position to do so.  But in any case it is beside the point.  It is useless to discuss it further.”

She broke in upon him almost fiercely.  “Trevor, won’t you believe me when I say that I know—­I know—­he is innocent?”