CHAPTER XXIX
THORNS AND ROSE PETALS
He remained stooping and staring up at her, realising the implication of her words only very slowly.
Then it grew clear to him.
As she saw understanding dawning in his face, she uttered a cry of consternation. She came forward and sat down upon the little bedroom chair. She turned to him and began a sentence. "I," she said and stopped, with an impatient gesture of her hands. "Oh!"
He straightened himself and stood regarding her. The basket of roses lay overturned between them.
"You thought these came from someone else?" he said, trying to grasp this inversion of the universe.
She turned her eyes. "I did not know," she panted. "A trap. . . . Was it likely—they came from you?"
"You thought they came from someone else," he said.
"Yes," she said, "I did."
"Who?"
"Mr. Baynes."
"That boy!"
"Yes—that boy."
"Well!"
Lewisham looked about him—a man in the presence of the inconceivable.
482
