“It was the big bushman I saw there?” said another person, and Alice Deringham felt a curious little quiver in her fingers as she waited the answer.

“Yes.  Hettie will feel it.  She made such a fuss of him, but it mayn’t have been his fault altogether.  He is quite a good-looking man, if he is a trifle lame, and the girl may have thrown herself at him.  They sometimes do.”

Alice Deringham set her lips and turned her head away from her companion as one of the voices continued.  “Hettie has not heard it yet, and Tom did not seem sure about it when he told me.  In fact, Forel brought the man over to see us the night before, but it is quite evident now the girl had been living there.  Yes, Tom heard he had rooms behind his office.”

Miss Deringham had recovered her outward serenity, and the flush had faded from her face, leaving it very colourless as she turned to her companion.

“You heard that woman?” she said.

The lady beside her nodded, though there was a little pink tinge in her cheeks.  “I am sorry that you did, my dear.”

Alice Deringham stood up, and looked down at her with a sparkle in her eyes.  “I know,” she said, “that it cannot be true.”

“We must hope so,” said her companion, who appeared distinctly uncomfortable.  “Still, the story is being told all over the city, and several of the houses Forel took the man to are closed against him already.”

Alice Deringham seemed to shiver a little.  “But—­it is impossible.”

Her companion shook her bead.  “My husband is a member of the company which employed Miss Townshead, and as the man’s business affairs were antagonistic to theirs she was dismissed immediately.”

Alice Deringham found it very difficult to conceal the effect of this last blow, and was turning away when two women rose from a divan behind the screen.  “The tea is cold.  Shall I ask for some more for you?” said one of them.  “Pleased to see you again, Miss Deringham.”

She got no further, for the girl, who looked her full in the face, passed on, and the other woman flushed a trifle.

“I’m afraid she must have heard you,” said somebody.  “Miss Deringham is, I believe, a connection of Alton’s, and Hettie Forel hinted there was something more than that between them.  It would be an especially suitable match because of some property in the old country.”

The lady she spoke to smiled somewhat sourly.  “Then one would be a trifle sorry for the rancher,” she said.

It cost Miss Deringham a good deal to talk to her hostess until she could depart without attracting attention, and she walked back to Forel’s house with a blaze in her eyes.  As yet she could not think connectedly, for the astonishment had left no room for more than vague sensations of disgust and anger and a horrible rankling of wounded pride.  Mrs. Forel as it happened was busy, and the girl slipped away to a room that was seldom occupied and sat there in the gathering darkness staring at the fire.  The story was, she strove to persuade herself, utterly impossible, for she had probed the man’s character thoroughly, and seen that it was wholesome through all its crudities—­and yet it was evident the horrible tale must have some foundation, because otherwise refutation would be so simple.