Curtis stood looking after him for a few seconds, then turned and entered the house.

She met him in the passage outside her room.  He greeted her gravely.

“I was just coming to see if I could do anything for you,” he said.

“Thank you,” she answered nervously.  “I am better now.  Where has my husband gone?”

He did not answer her immediately.  He turned aside to the room in which she generally sat, standing back for her to pass him.  “I have something to say to you,” he said.

She glanced at him anxiously as she took the chair he offered her.

“In the first place,” he said, “you will be wise if you keep absolutely quiet for the next few days.  There will be nothing to disturb you.  Mercer is not returning at present.  He has left you in my charge.”

“Oh, why?” she said.

Her hands were locked together.  She had begun to tremble from head to foot.

Curtis was watching her quietly.

“I think,” he said, “that he is better away from you for a time, and he agrees with me.”

“Why?” she said again, lifting her piteous eyes.  “Is he so angry with me?”

“With you?  No.  He has come to his senses in that respect.  But he is not in a particularly safe mood, and he knows it.  He has gone to fight it out by himself.”

Curtis paused, but Sybil did not speak.  Her attitude had relaxed.  He read unmistakble relief in every line.

“Well, now,” he said deliberately, “I am going to tell you the exact truth of this business, as Mercer himself has told it to me.”

“He wishes me to know it?” she asked quickly.

“He is willing that I should tell you,” Curtis answered.  “In fact, until he saw me to-day he believed that you knew it already.  That was the primary cause of his savagery last night.  You have probably formed a very shrewd suspicion of what happened, but it is better for you to know things as they actually stand.  If it makes you hate him—­well, it’s no more than he deserves.”

“Ah, but I have to live with him,” she broke in, with sudden passion.  “It is easy for you to talk of hating him, but I—­I am his wife.  I must go on living by his side, whatever I may feel.”

“Yes, I know,” Curtis said.  “But it won’t make it any easier for either of you to feel that there is this thing between you.  Even he sees that.  You can’t forgive him if you don’t know what he has done.”

“Then why doesn’t he tell me himself?” she said.

“Because,” Curtis answered, looking at her steadily, “it will be easier for you to hear it from me.  He saw that, too.”

She could not deny it, but for some reason it hurt her to hear him say so.  She had a feeling that it was to Curtis’s insistence, rather than to her husband’s consideration, that she owed this present respite.

“I will listen to you, then,” she said.

Curtis began to walk up and down the room.