.

THE TRUTH.
To Captain Tremayne, fretted with impatience in the diningroom, came, at the end of a long hour of waiting, Sylvia Armytage.

She entered unannounced, at a moment when for the third time he was on the point of ringing for Mullins, and for a moment they stood considering each other mutually ill at ease.

Then Miss Armytage closed the door and came forward, moving with that grace peculiar to her, and carrying her head erect, facing Captain Tremayne now with some lingering signs of the defiance she had shown the members of the court-martial.
"Mullins tells me that you wish to see me," she said the merest conventionality to break the disconcerting, uneasy silence.
"After what has happened that should not surprise you," said Tremayne.
His agitation was clear to behold, his usual imperturbability all departed.

"Why," he burst out suddenly, "why did you do it ?" She looked at him with the faintest ghost of a smile on her lips, as if she found the question amusing.