Marise slept little, in what was left of that strange wedding night.

She tried to think of Tony Severance, who must be suffering tortures through his love and fears for her. But somehow he had lost importance. He had become a figure in the background. Her thoughts would turn their "spot light" upon the man in the adjoining room.

Was he asleep? Was he awake? Was he thinking about her, and if so, what? Why had he married her? If it was for love, as she had fancied at first, could he have treated her as he had? That was hard to believe! Yet it was harder to believe his motives wholly mercenary.

"Perhaps that's because I'm vain," the girl told herself. And she remembered, her cheeks hot, how Garth had accused her of vanity and selfishness. He'd said that she took no interest in anything which didn't concern Marise Sorel. She had been angry then, and thought him unjust and hard. But in her heart she knew that he had touched the truth. She was vain and selfish. And she was hard, too, just as hard to him as he to her.

"He has made me so!" she excused herself. "I was never hard to anyone else before, in all my life."

But she could not rest on this special pleading. What right had she to be hard to this man? She had asked him to marry her. His crime was that he had granted her wish and consented to play this dummy hand; and now the deed was done he was not grovelling to her or to Tony Severance. How much more British he seemed, by the by, than dark, Greek Tony, of subtle ways!

At luncheon, talking with Pobbles, he had spoken of Yorkshire as his county. Marise wondered what he had meant. But, of course, she would not ask. John Garth's past was no affair of hers. Still, she couldn't stop puzzling about him. She puzzled nearly all night. He was turning out such a different man from the man she had vaguely imagined! In fact, he was different from any man she had ever met, off the stage or on.

Staring into darkness as the hours passed, Marise felt that she could not wait for Céline. She'd get up at dawn, dress, and flit to her own room in Mums' suite. But no! She couldn't do that. She hadn't a key to that suite. She would have to pound on the door, and other people beside Mums and Céline would hear. There would be gossip—which she'd sacrificed much already to avoid.

Dreading the long night of wakefulness, the girl suddenly dropped fast asleep, and began at once to dream of Garth. Zélie Marks was in the dream, too, and—dreams are so ridiculous!—Marise was jealous. What had happened between the two she didn't know; but she would have known in another instant, for Zélie was going to confess, if a rap had not sounded at the door and made her sit up in a fright. Marise was just about to cry, "You can't come in!" when she realised that it was the peculiar double knock of Céline.

The Frenchwoman was prompt, though the night had seemed so long. Her mistress sipped hot, fragrant Orange Pekoe from an eggshell cup, and in a whisper bade Céline move quietly, not to rouse Monsieur Garth in the next room.

"Oh, Mademoiselle—Madame!" said the maid.

"Monsieur has gone out, early as it is. His door is wide open."

Marise must have slept more soundly than she knew. She hadn't heard a sound.

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask Céline about the jewel-cases—if they were lying in the corridor. But she couldn't put such a question! The maid would be too curious—she would fancy there had been some vulgar quarrel instead of—instead of—well, Marise hardly knew how to qualify her own conduct.

"I'm afraid I was vulgar," she thought, like a child repenting last night's misdeeds. "It was horrid of me to throw those lovely things on the floor. Poor fellow, he must have spent a fortune—somebody's fortune (whose, I wonder?)—on those pearls, and diamonds and emeralds, and all the rest. Yet I never said one word of gratitude. I was never such a brute before!... I'm sure it must be his fault. Still—I don't like myself one bit better than I like him."

As Garth had gone out, there was no great need for haste. Céline had brought all that was needed, and Marise might dress—as well as repent—at leisure. But she was wild with impatience to know whether the jewels were lying where she had thrown them. While Céline was letting the bath-water run, the girl peeped out into the flower-scented corridor. The jewel-cases had gone!

This discovery gave her a slight shock. She had more than half expected to see them on the floor, and had wondered what she would do if they were there—whether she would pick them up and decide to accept the gifts after all, with a stiff, yet decent little speech of gratitude. "I'm sure you meant to do what I would like, and I don't wish to hurt your feelings," or something of that sort.

Now, what should she do? The probability was that Garth himself had retrieved his rejected treasures. But there was just a chance—such horrors happened in hotels!—that a thief had pussy-footed into the suite to search for wedding presents, and had found them easily in an unexpected place. That would be too dreadful! Because, if she—Marise—held her tongue, Garth would always believe that she had annexed the things, and had chosen to be sulkily silent.

"I shall have ............