had let her cloak slide to the ground, revealing her
white arms, her fanciful, incongruous attire), she seemed, indeed, a
creature of another world.

When she turned to him at last there was an immense and solemn
entreaty in her eyes for candour and directness, an appeal to be
spared no bitter knowledge that he might possess--for the whole
truth.

"Tell me," she began slowly, calmly, though he was not ignorant that
her composure was the result of an immense inward effort. "I can't
explain why I have come to you--perhaps you yourself can explain
that better than I. I don't know what you may think of me--I am too
unhappy to care. I have no claim upon you. I only entreat you to
answer me a question which perhaps no one now living can answer but
you. Ah!"--she broke off with a gesture of sudden passion--"I have
been so cruelly kept in the dark."

Oswyn lowered his eyes for a moment, considering. A curious wave of
reminiscence swept over him, giving to this strange juxtaposition
the last touch of completion.

He remembered Rainham's long reticence, and his unburdening himself
at the last, in a conviction that there would be a season when the
truth would be best. And he said to himself that this time had come.

"Mrs. Lightmark," he said at last, in a low, constrained voice, "I
promise to answer any question that is within my knowledge."

"It is about my--my husband and Philip Rainham. What passed between
them in the autumn of last year? Who was that woman?"

He did not reply for a moment; but unconsciously his eyes met hers
full, and in their brief encounter it was possible that many truths
were silently told. Presently she continued:

"You need not tell me, Mr. Oswyn. I can see your answer as plainly
as if you had spoken. It is my husband----"

She broke off sharply, let her beautiful head droop with a movement
of deep prostration upon her hands.

"What have I done, what have I done," she moaned, "that this
dishonour should come to me?"

It was a long time before she looked up at him.

"Why did he do it?" she whispered.

"Have you never guessed?" he asked in his turn. "I will tell you,
Mrs. Lightmark. I was with him when he was dying. He wished you to
know; he had some such time as this in his mind. It was a sort of
message."

"He wished me to know--a sort of message," she repeated blankly. "He
spoke of me, then--he forgave me for my hard judgement, for knowing
him so ill?"

"It was himself that he did n