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“I suppose I’m not quite strong yet. They told me I ought not to travel so soon.”

“What was it?”

“Pneumonia—after ’flu.”

“Why have you come back?”

“It’s better that I should be here, on the spot, for the case, isn’t it?”

“If you’re going on with it, I don’t think you ought to have come to see me.”

“Why not? No one need know I’ve seen you. I only arrived an hour ago. No one even suspects I’m back in Wairiri yet.”

Ann made no comment on this. But she had seated herself, and the two women faced one another in silence, in the darkening shop.

“Was it true—what you said in your letter?” asked Vera suddenly.

“You know it was.”

“How should I know? Why should a man like Gerald Waring want to marry you? How often outside the pages of penny novelettes does the rich bachelor propose to his typist or . . . or any poor girl in a subordinate position?”

“That’s not a very kind remark, is it?” said Ann.

“Why should I be kind to you?”

“Haven’t I shown any consideration for you?”

“You mean in keeping from Dick the knowledge you imagine you gained of . . . of an intrigue between Gerald and me? I wish now you’d spoken. I wish the action for divorce had been brought by Dick.”

Ann was silent, and Vera went on with a certain violence:

“Gerald always flirts with every attractive woman he comes across—but he hasn’t any serious idea of