m. After I had enlightened him as to his duty, it
was all simple. I gave him just sufficient hope--of pardon, I mean--to
keep him alive, and turn his despair to active penitence. The game is
entirely in your hands now. He was on fire to come back with me, or to
write at once. I said he must take no more liberties, but wait for
permission. If I may venture a suggestion, you might let me tell him to
write you; then you can graciously allow him to come when you are ready
for him."

That I may call a succinct and lucid narrative. She listened to it with
clear eyes like Portia, as if she were a judge and had to hear such
cases every day. Now for questions: I bet odds there will not be more
than three, and those straight to the heart of my discourse--nothing
irrelevant, or secondary, or sentimental.

"Did he say what had been his offence?"

"Presumption. He insulted you--though of course he didn't mean to--and
you very properly resented it and withered him with contempt. He never
understood, till I made him see it, that what he did next was worse than
this, as emphasizing the wrong and making it--for a while--irrevocable."

Her eyes were like judgment lightnings now, that might burn through the
darkness and bring out all hidden things. Luckily I had nothing to hide;
or rather I was about to make a clean breast of it.

"How were you able to speak so positively?"

"That is what he asked me, and therein lay such power as I had to master
him; at least it was the chief weapon in my arsenal. I answer you as I
answered him: By knowing more about the matter than he did. Princess, I
have deceived you all along, and broken my promise to tell you
everything. I saw and overheard the quarrel." And then I told her all
about it.

She looked at me silently, with an expression I never saw before. I
turned away, as one turns from the sun in his strength. I was sitting on
a stool beside her, and I suppose my head went down. Suddenly a hand was
on my forehead, pushing it back. "Robert, look at me. What was your
motive in keeping this from me?"

"O, the motives were mixed; they always are. There was my dread of
offending you; that was selfish. And more than that, I did not want to
hurt you, if it could be avoided. And most, I was not willing to
complicate the trouble, and all but certainly make it worse. It seemed
to me that you would be shocked, and disgusted, and enraged to know that
a third person had intruded on so private a scene, a