Is it important to you ?" Deringham, who was not wholly master of himself, made a little grimace, and the girl glanced away from him with a curious shrinking.

Under stress of fatigue and anxiety the veneer had worn off both of them, and in that impressive hour, when the spirit is bound most loosely to the clay, each had seen something not hitherto suspected of the other's inmost self.

In the girl's case the sight had been painful, for all that was good in her had risen uppermost just then.

In Deringham's there was very little but veneer, and craven fear and avarice looked out through his eyes.
"Yes," he said in a voice that was the harsher for its lowness; "and to you.

I did not tell you, but if that man dies you will be the mistress of Carnaby." Alice Deringham made a little half-contemptuous gesture of impatience, but the colour showed in her cheek.