CHAPTER III

The quiet which followed, the girl’s breathless questions was like the still instant which precedes the bursting of a shell. Even the spaniel held his breath. A burned log in the fireplace crumbled and fell. The sound broke the spell. “_Julie!_” At Trafford’s hoarse protest the blank surprise on the face of the man at the door shifted to skeptical insolence. He glanced at the ringless left hand which clutched Trafford’s arm. With a seventeenth century flourish he swept off his hat. The thin spot on top his head sho…