“From Mrs. Franks.”

“Mrs. Franks—­yes.  She told you, then, that I had been to St. Jean de Luz?  She told you that I had seen her sister?”

“Yes,” replied Bertha, and added quickly.  “You had long wished to see that part of France.”

“That wasn’t my reason for going.  I went in a fit of lunacy.  I went because I thought Miss Elvan was there.  They told me at her Chelsea lodgings that she had gone to St. Jean de Luz.  This was on the day after she came into the shop with you.  I had been seeing her.  We met here and there, when she was sketching.  I went crazy.  Don’t for a moment think the fault was hers—­don’t dream of anything of the kind.  I, I alone, ass, idiot, was to blame.  She must have seen what had happened, and, in leaving her lodgings, she purposely gave a false address, never imagining that I was capable of pursuing her across Europe.  At St. Jean de Luz I heard of her marriage—­”

He stopped, breathless.  The short sentences had been flung out explosively.  He was hot and red.

“Did you suspect anything of all that?” followed in a more restrained tone.  “If so, of course I understand—­”

Bertha seemed to be deep iii meditation.  A faint smile was on her lips.  She made no answer.

“Are you saying to yourself,” Will went on vehemently, “that, instead of being merely a foolish man, I have shown myself to be shameless?  It was foolish, no doubt, to dream that an educated girl might marry a grocer; but when he begins his suit by telling such a story as this—!  Perhaps I needn’t have told it at all.  Perhaps you had never had a suspicion of such things?  All the same, it’s better so.  I’ve had enough of lies to last me for all my life; but now that I’ve told you, try to believe something else; and that is—­that I never loved Rosamund Elvan—­never—­never!”

Bertha seemed on the point of laughing; but she drew in her breath, composed her features, let her eyes wander to a picture on the wall.

“Can you believe that?” Will asked, his voice quivering with earnestness, as he bent forward to her.

“I should have to think about it,” was the answer, calm, friendly.

“The fit of madness from which I suffered is very common in men.  Often it has serious results.  No end of marriages come about in that way.  Happily I was in no danger of that.  I simply made a most colossal fool of myself.  And all the time—­all the time, I tell you, believe it or not, as you will or can—­I was in love with you.”

Again Bertha drew in her breath, more softly than before.

“I went one day from St. Jean de Luz over the border into Spain, and came to a village among the mountains, called Vera.  And there my madness left me.  And I thought of you—­thought of you all the way back to St. Jean de Luz, thought of you as I had been accustomed to do in England, as if nothing had happened.  Do you think it pained me then that Rosamund was Mrs. Franks?  No more